
^ Ajy/c^y eg/ ^-/<ft^ 






m^ 



Miiifii^ilfjiff^fl 








JAMBS PUMMILL. 




;:^« K^^-i^ fit-- 



PHILADELPHIA: 
J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO 

1870. 







Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1S69, by 
JAMES PUMMILL, 



In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for tlie Southern 
District of Ohio. 



Printed at the Western Methodist Book Co 








yf OW many unfortunate authors 

7^ have thrown out their Hnes to 

catch the pubHc fovor! — and how few 

. ^ have succeeded ! Yet the author of 

,, the following prose and poetic sketches, 

regardless of the ill luck of the thousands 

who have cast their fly upon the waters, 

ventures to try his skill, — and hopes, with 

the same fondness which influenced his predecessors, 

to succeed in filling his basket with those golden 

favors for which we all earnestly labor. 

The fragments contained in this volume were writ- 
ten in the author's youth, by the streams of his native 



2. Preface. 

West, in the green solitude of the forest, at a time 
when his heart knew no care, and when the world, in 
the fairy-land of his fancy, was full of love and beauty. 
The reader will take them as they are, with all their 
rustic imperfections. As the author has not aspired 
to climb the dizzy hills of Poesy, but has been con- 
tent to wander in the secluded valley, plucking here 
a leaf and there a flower, with which to form his 
humble wreath, it will not be thought that he seeks 
the honor of more pretensious laurels. 

Russet Cottage, Tusculum, ) 
Near Cincinnati. i 








PAGE 

DEDICATION, _ 

A WATER LYRIC, U 

THE SPRING-HOUSE, l5 

THIRST, ^ 

THE SILVAN RIVER, 26 

"LA BELLE RIVIERE," 28 

EMBLEM OF PEACE, ^^ 

COUNTRY OCCUPATIONS, ^. 

A TASTE OF FARM-LIFE, .q 

ODE TO THE BELOVED SPRING, cq 

A RURAL MORNING, . . r, 

CONTENTMENT, (.g 

3 



4 Contents. 

PACE 

TWILIGHT VERSES, 57 

SPRING-HOUSE ACQUAINTANCES, 59 

A RUSTIC " REED," 69 

MUSIC IN ANIMALS, 72 

MUSIC OF SPRING, 82 

THE BEAUTIFUL BROOK 84 

THE MOCKING-BIRD, 88 

TO A BIRD, 90 

THE MIDNIGHT BIRD, 92 

A MORNING WISH, 96 

DOMESTIC TABLEAU 97 

MORNING, 102 

NOON, 105 

THE SETTING SUN, I06 

THE SUMMER SHOWER I08 

GREEN PEAS, I09 

GOSSIP AFTER PEAS, II4 

A DREAM-SONG, I33 

THE MOVING WORLD I36 

THE GOURD, I38 

LOVE- SONGS, 146 



Contents. 5 

PAGE 

THE WIND, 153 

OCTOBER REVERIES, . , 159 

RUSSET COTTAGE, 174 

I 

NEW BOOTS, 177 

BOHEMIAN FRAGMENT, 1 85 

AN AUTUMN DAY 1 88 

DEAR, DEAR MAY, I93 

FIFfEEN YEARS AGO, 201 

WOOD-FANCIES 204 

BY SILENT GRAVES, 209 

SILVAN ELEGY 212 






^O thee I dedicate these leaves, 
^' Torn from the forest nooks, 

When blue-eyed Suniiner laid her hand 
Upon the wood, and through its limbs 
Breathed living joy and love. 

To thee, thou tendril of my heart ! 

That clingest around it still. 
In every season of our life, — 
Whether the winds of chill Adversity 

I'estrew our path with leaves, — 

Or Ceres pours her golden horn 
- ; Of beauty in our laps, — 

I, shadow of our days 
Ihe dewy, laughing eyes of Hope 
Ihrow radiant gleams divine: — 

1 >- th^e, solace of my soul ! 

My gentlest friend, my love ! 

That read'st forever to my heart 

The tale of deep and patient toil, 

Through the far ways of life : — 

To thee I dedicate these flowers, 

Gathered in woodlands gray 
Throughout the devious, sunny days, 
When Dryads sat beneath the boughs, 

And talked, as friends, to me ! 



I weave the leaves, tlie roses wild. 

Into a humble wreath. 
And o'er thy blessed, peaceful brows 
I hang them, and their odors rich 

Spread halos round thy locks. 

Though none may wish to breathe their odors. 

Save me, and thy sweet self, 
Vet will they scent with joy our lives. 
And fling glad fragrance all around 

Our pathway to the tomb. 

To thee I dedicate these leaves, 

Snatched from the shady nooks, — 
And from my heart, my pleasant wife. 
When weird-like music swept its strings 
In the young hours of Love! 

Let other poets weave their songs 

In garlands of rich bays, 
To deck the forehead of some king — 
Some moneyed lord — who wreathes his lips 

In smiles — half joy, half scorn : — 

Only for thy dear eyes, tliat beam 

Unseen and all unknown, 
1'hese leaves and flowers are here arranged. 
And fill the quiet of our home 

With fragrance and delight. 

If other souls, in passing by, 

Should feel their modest breath, 
And pause — and bless it as they pause — 
'T is well. Ah ! not in vain I 've wrought 

Tliis coronet of Love. 




Ji- Wniev Lyric. 





Il^rf ATURE'S soft-ey'd, sinless child, 
Beautiful water, free and wild — 
^ Leaping cannily over the hills 
In bubbling broolcs, in murmuring rills, 
Singing forever a pleasant song. 
Thou passest, in loveliness, along ! 



II. 



On the mountain's rocky top, 
Oozing faintly, drop by drop, 
^^^^ O, kindliest spirit of air and earth ! 
Thou hast, I ween, thy royal birth : 



12 



Russet Leaves. 

There, in the regal realm of snows, 
Born of the mighty Mist, that throws 
Her vapory arm round the mountain's form, 
Thou 'rt cradled and rocked amid the storm. 

III. 

Down the mountain's dizzy side 

I see thee, child of the Vapor, glide ! 

Leaving behind thy palace of snows. 

To wander — whither ? O, who can tell ! — 
Thou never more shalt know repose 

On hillside, or in grassy dell — 

By rivulet, river, lake, or fell ! 

IV. 

Dashing down the mountain ; 

Leaping from the fountain ; 

Tossing, in commotion, 

On the wind-rocked ocean ; 

From the storm-cloud pouring 

To the torrent roaring; 

O'er the cataract tumbling. 

With a sullen rumbling ; 

Round the whirlpool coiling; 

Through the rapids toiling. 

Seething, bubbling, boiling; 
In a frantic quake and quiver, 
Shivering with the shaking river : 
Thus, O Water, in splendid strife. 
Thou passest a part of thy restless life ! 



J^ussE T Lea ves. 1 3 



When the sun puts on his vest 

Of purple and of gold, — 
A king in his evening grandeur drest, — 
O, vapory child 
Of the Mountain wild ! 
A city of splendor, icy cold. 
Thou buildest for him in the shining West. 

Castles, old and hoary, 

Rise like ruins in a dream ; 
Banners float in glory 

O'er weird battlements that seem 
The fragments of a wondrous story — 

The wild thoughts of a dream. 

From the sunniest island 
Of the misty skyland 
A ship puts forth its antique prow: 
Its sails uncurl, as from a sleep; 
Its masts arise from out the deep ; 
It shakes its pinions free and wide, 
And he who lists may see it glide 
Silently, dreamily down the tide. 
Toward the city cold and old, 
That glows in amethyst, ruby, and gold,- 
Toward the city dim and far — 
Till, I know not when, or where, or how, 
The vessel with the antique prow — 

Each sail and mast, each rope and spar,- 



14 Russet Leaves. 

Fades quite away 
In the twilight gray, 
With the dropping Sun and the dying Day. 
The Deluge of the terrible Dark 
Then covers, with its mighty pall, 
Castle, island, city, and all. 
And the rising Moon, that heavenly Ark, 
O'er the wide waste of Desolation glides, 
Serenely calm amid the eternal tides. 

VI. 

Then, O magical mountain maid ! 

Thou weavest o'er the woodland bowers 

Beautiful woofs, in moonlight hours. 
Around the charmed trees arrayed. 
By thy delightful aid. 

And by the moon-sylphs' beaming fingers, 
Are jeweled bands, that glimmer and glow 
In the delicate tints of a lunar bow. 

While the moonlight lingers. 

The plants that all day, in the sun. 
Drooped their sad heads, one by one 
Arise, and all with one acclaim 
Whisper thy beloved name. 
Every twinkle, every sigh 
Under the leafy panoply 
Of the far midnight Summer trees, — 
Which hum and murmur in the breeze 
Like the soft sound of hiv&d bees, — 



7? [/ss£ r Leaves. 15 

Seems laden with thine excellent love, 
As thou — around, beneath, above — 
Pourest through the woodland wide 
Of thy pure heart the purest tide. 

Dear, soothing queen of the forest shades, 

Pleasant lover of starlight glades, 

Nourisher kind of all that fades 

In August noons — thy quiet power 

Is owned by the forest, tree and flower — 

Is owned by the rivulet that runs 

Drowsily under Summer suns — 

Is owned by the sea — is felt by the land. 

By the valley low, and the mountain grand — 

Is owned by the desert, hot and dry, 

Which cowers beneath a brazen sky, 

And weeps with joy when thou art nigh ! 



Nature's soft-eyed, sinless child, 

Beautiful water, free and wild — 

Leaping cannily over the hills 

In bubbling springs, in murmuring rills — 

Singing forever a pleasant song. 

Thou glidest along, thou leapest along — 

In majesty, love, and beauty, along ! 



i6 Russet Leaves. 



II. 



The $pring-3iiouse, 



^ 




\' 



fO lark tliat turns his musical bosom toward the 
sky ever trilled sweeter notes than the spring- 
brook which dances over the pebbles at the foot 
of the hill near my country cottage. 

You approach this sparlcling earth-goblet by a winding 
path from the door. A time-scathed maple stands over 
against it, bending its venerable arms graciously toward 
the stream, as in the act of benediction. Many a time, 
while looking out dreamily, from the window of my attic 
study, upon the solemn form of that old tree, have I seen 
my goodwife, Neibelungen, wind down the zigzag path to 
the spring below, lift the lucent water from its bed with 
her pitcher, and bear it, coolly dripping, homeward. 

And there! — as I write these Unes — there goes Ned, 
with a small pail in his hand, swinging it, and singing 
blithely as he walks, the incarnation of sport and young 
frolic ! He is going to the spring. 

Neibelungen frequently sends him there for water to 
get rid of him — the little pest ! — for she knows that if 
Ned once reaches the spring she will not very soon see 



Russet Leaves. 19 

him again. He has a poet's spirit welling up in his young 
breast, and the charming lullaby of the water over the 
stones, the dark, sandy bubblings and boilings at the 
bottom of the spring, and the cool shadow of the spring- 
house, are temptations that quickly subdue his unresisting 
mind. There he lingers for hours, dipping up the water 
in his bucket, and tossing the crystalline drops into the 
sunshine, or viewing his face in the depths of the brook- 
mirror, or dabbling his feet in the stream which rolls away 
to the spring-house. 

The spring-house ! That brings me to my subject. 

The spring-house stands at a convenient distance from 
the spring, for the benefit of the water. It is built of 
rough limestone, is about seven feet high, seven feet in 
diameter each way, and closed on every side, except a 
door springward, and openings at the bottom for the 
passage of the stream. The roof is also of limestone, 
arched, and covered here and there with lichen, or moss, 
and cheerful grass and wild-flowers. Ranged all around 
the inside of this cool little cell are flat earthenware 
dishes and tin-pans, containing milk, the surface of which 
is mantled by a fine, rich, yellow scum. This fine, rich 
scum is called cream — something which the inhabitants 
of the pent-up city may read about once in a while, but 
never see. "Spot" and "Rosy,'' two sober members of 
the bovine race, come up to the gate every morning and 
evening to furnish our little household the sweet material 
which you see in those flat dishes : for which we give 
tliem, in return, all the grass they can eat. 

I frequently, after the labors of the early morning — or 



20 Russet Leaves. 

about your city "lunch "-time — visit the spring-house for 
the purpose of refrigerating myself. The ever-thoughtful 
Neibelungen keeps here, in the twilight coolness, two 
dishes which, ever since I left the maternal bosom, have 
been luxuries to me. There they stand, side by side, in 
yon cold corner, on a damp stone, the hurrying waters 
of the spring occasionally rushing up to kiss the vessels 
which contain them. One of them is called buttermilk ; 
the other is known by the not very euphonious name of 
bonny-clabber. 

Every morning, Neibelungen goes to the spring-house, 
and skims from the surface of the milk tliat has stood for 
some time all the rich, thick, golden cream. This she 
puts into a tall wooden vessel called a churn. Frequent 
and persevering oscillation of the cream in the churn, 
with a dasher, converts the greater part of it into butter, 
and the liquid which is left is called buttermilk. And a 
very excellent drink this is, on a hot Summer day. It 
allays the fever in the human system charmingly, as my 
experience vouches. The voluptuous metropolitan may 
boast of his iced sherbet, mint-julep, sherry-cobbler, gin- 
cocktail. Bourbon-smash, or whatsoever beverage is con- 
cocted in city saloons for the delectation of hot, perspiring 
humanity : but give me the white, glistening drink which 
comes, pure and innocent, from the cliurn. 

Bonny-clabber — I know not whether my orthography 
be correct, but so it sounds when issuing from the lips — 
bonny-clabber is milk that has stood for some time, until 
it has become thick and jelly-like. In fact, you might 
consistently call it milk-jelly. It is as white as snow, and 



JHussE T Lea ves. 2 1 

has a pleasant, tart flavor, alluring to the palate which 
has not been vitiated by 

"Hot and rebellious liquors." 

In drinking the rich buttermilk I use no cup of any 
kind ; but lifting the pan or crock to my lips in primitive 
fashion, I drink until something inside of me whispers, 
" Enough !" and then set the vessel aside. 

Bonny-clabber, however, can not be "quaffed." It is 
not sufficiently Jluidical. Nor can it be eaten, in the 
manner of sardines or deviled kidneys. It is neither a 
fluid nor a solid, but a happy compromise between the 
two, and requires a spoon. Taking a spoon, then, and 
separating a certain portion of the "bonny" from the 
quivering, snow-white mass in the crock, I place it in a 
bowl or saucer. Scattering over the top of tiie dish a 
quantity of white sugar, which is absorbed by my milk- 
jelly, I have a delicious combination of tart-sweetness and 
sweet-tartness of which the old Roman epicures, in the 
hight and fullness of their luxury, never dreamed. 

I have been at social gatherings in the city, where, 
amid the blaze of gas and jewelry, and the tinkling of the 
guitar and piano, Morris's or Louderback's ice-cream has 
been taken with the relish peculiar to a festivity. But 
here is more enjoyment for my unambitious taste. The 
waters from the spring-brook come tinkling, tinkling, 
modestly and musically, over the rocks and pebbles in 
yon quiet spring-house — the songs of repose. The mist- 
like twilight in the building is more inspiring than the 
glare of gas, be there ever so many sweet faces beaming 



22 



Russet Leaves. 



beneath its splendor. And if some magician were to place 
beside my bowl of bonny-clabber the best lemon, vanilla, 
or strawberry ice-cream that ever grew into luscious 
existence under the manipulations of a city confectioner, 
I would seize i/iy humble but pleasant dish, and proclaim 
it enthusiastically the prime luxury for the better feasts 
of man ! 




Russet Leaves. 23 



in. 



Thirst. 



* '-'^^HE brave, lovigli soldier in the battle 
Coolly listens to the rattle 

Of the iron rain — 
To the terrible brazen thunder, 
Shaking the frightened air asunder 
Along the battle plain. 

But when sets the blood-red sun 

In the blood-red sky, 
And the day's dread work is done, 
Hot with thirst, he lays him down, 
A weary man, upon the ground. 

To slumber or to die. 



O, delicious water ! 

Rock-born, cloud-nursed water ! 
In his sleep he dreams of thee : — 
Thou kissest his burning lips to peace ; 



24 Russet Leaves. 

Thou bidd'st his feverish longing cease ; 
He starts and wakes, alas ! to see 
The spectral dead on every side — 
Sad, solemn relics of the tide 
That o'er the surging field had past, 
In fury, on the battle-blast. 

III. 

Where art thou, darling of the Mist .'' 
Where is the angel sweet that kist 
His parched lips in cooling dreams ? 
Where are the lucent-murmuring streams 
That dashed their wet breath on his brow ? 
Fled far from where he lies, — and now 
The Moon sits in her burning lair, 

With serpent, horrid eyes, — 
A demon, scorching the very air 

Between him and the skies. 



No cloud is on the horizon ; 

The zephyr, which soothed at eve, is gone ; 
He hears no sound save the groans of the dying, 
Or some wild bird in the wild wood sighing 
A wilder song, and echo's sad replying. 

V. 

Thus, drearily, Morning comes apace ; 

But worn and palsied with thirst and pain. 
With watching tlie sky as if for rain, — 



Russet Leaves. 



25 



His cracked lips yawning blue and wide, — 
The brave, rough soldier at daybreak died ; 
And the Sun, arrayed in cooling shrouds, 
Looks lovingly from his throne of clouds — 
Too late, too late ! — on the hero's ghastly face ! 






"'^- . \ 




26 



/ii/ss£ T Lea ves. 



IV. 



The Siluan Eiucn 



SILVAN River, softly sighing under the glow of 
■•j^^. Western skies ! 

'4^^^/ The sun-flecks round thy bosom playing when 

aureate Summer suns arise. 
Seem pure and happy spirits — gliding, vanishing like a 

merry dream — 
Of thy light waves the forest fairies — gentle, soul-inspiring 
stream ! 



When Morning wakes from dewy slumber, running in 

gladness o'er the lea. 
And all the shadowy w-recks of twilight float off" to dim 

Oblivion's sea, 
The poet seeks thy blooming border, to view Aurora's 

earliest gleam 
In loving dalliance with thy waters — ^gentle, soul-inspiring 

stream ! 



Russet Leaves. 27 

And O, when daily toils have ended— when twilight flutters 

in the West, 
And Love's lone planet burns in beauty, like a rich jewel 

on thy breast, 
The sighing lover on thy margin starts at the night-bird's 

boding scream, 
Wildly commingling with thy music— gentle, soul-inspiring 

stream ! 



There as thy waters rush and tremble, silently, in the star- 
light dim, 

He thinks of /wr, the haughty ladie, who never, never 
thinks of liim ; 

And in thy dark, sepulchral bosom, with smile as cold as 
moonlight beam. 

He hides his life and love forever — weird and ghostly 
silvan stream ! 




2S I?(/ssE T Lea ves. 



V, 



"fca Belle Eiwere." 



m 

'^l^yJ^^URMUR on, thou noble River,— like old Time 
■'"^^^ pursue thy way, 

'•v^^^ To the great sea, in thy beauty, rolling ever 

night and day, — 
Gently, and with graceful motion, glide along through 

countries fair, 
To the wild and trackless Ocean — lave thy weary waters 
there ! 

Lovers sighing in the starlight listen to thy lulling tone, 

Just as lovers sighed and listened in the Ages that are 
gone,— 

While the Moonshine shapes fantastic figures in thy mur- 
murous caves, 

While the shadows of those Ages skim along thy shining 
waves. 



Russet Leaves. 31 

Savage barques, witli dusky chieftains, never more will 

glide o'er thee. 
Gentle river, pleasant river, rolling softly to the sea ! 
Change is written in thy border, change thy every valley 

fills. 
Gentle river, solemn river, toiling grandly from the hills ! 

Wild-flowers plucked by Indian beauties, they were faded 

years ago ; 
Woods that, in their primal splendor, in thy valleys were 

aglow. 
Long have vanished like the light dream of the sleeper in 

his sleep : 
But thy white waves still commingle with the blue waves 
of the deep ! 

Roses blush at morn, and wither ere the night-dews kiss 

their cheeks ; 
Buoyant clouds, which hang in glory round thy sunset 

mountain peaks. 
Fade and fall ere red Aurora lifts the curtain of the 

Night,— 
But, bright stream, with changeless beauty, thou dost 

revel still in li^ht ! 



32 



Russet Leaves. 



VI. 



Embkm of fa^ca. 




Arden Forest, calm and free, 
Forever to a shining sea, 
river flows in quietude — 
The angel of the wood ! 



No tempest ever rends its calm ; 
But, peaceful as the Summer balm 
That dwelleth in the forest ways, 
This angel river strays. 

The roses bending o'er its side 
Reflect their beauty in the tide ; 
At night between some leafy space 
The Moon beholds her face. 



And flecking dots of light and shade, 
By forest-trees and sunshine made. 
Dance gladly o'er this river bright 
When flies the dewy night. 



Russet Leaves. 33 

And through tlie long, long Summer day 
The robin pours his soul away 
In music, by its margin fair — 
Rejoiced to linger there. 

Without the wood a golden sea, 
Where sacred Beauty loves to be, 
Enclasps within its fond embrace 
This stream of joyant face. 

And sparkling ever in the sun, 
From rosy morn to twilight dun, 
The river murmurs with the sea 
A holy lullaby. 

A symbol of the good man's life : 
Exempt from gloom and cankering strife, 
Thus golden glide away liis hours 
In Life's sequestered bowers. 

And when the sliade of Time is past, 
He reaches that far sea at last. 
To whose glad waters aye are given 
The blissful smiles of heaven. 
3 



34 Russet Leaves. 



^ountnj Occupations* 




Y present occupation is a more satistactory one 
"^M than " wielding tlie sliovel and tlie hoe." I am 
-i) laying out my rather limited but thrifty acres in 
choice shade-trees and shrubbery, and making numerous 
additions of convenience and ornament to my humble 
country cabin. At least I think I am, as sitting on a 
fence-rail, a short distance from the house, I see my wife 
Neibelungen feeding her chickens, my boy Ned trying to 
drive away the big rooster from his share of the prov- 
ender, and granddad Dominic smoking his cob-pipe by 
the garden fence. If one has not the means to fit up his 
real estate in a manner suitable to his tastes, it is a great 
gratification to build beautiful grounds and stately man- 
sions "i' the air," and become, in dreamland, as plethoric 
of funds as Nick Longworth or J. J. Aston No law, 
either common or special can, as far as my limited knowl- 
edge extends, prevent a man from going (in imagination) 
to the nearest nursery, and transplanting its most precious 
vegetation upon his own grounds. 

I have already made large improvements around my 



J?[/ssE r Lea ves. 



35 



home. I have walks and lawns in tlie rear and front of 
my residence — a flower and fruit garden flanking me on 
one side, and a young but vigorous orchard on the other. 
Climbing about my latticed porches are sweet-smelling 
vines, the perfumes of whose flowers invite myself and 
family, early in the morning, from our repose. Neibe- 
lungen watches them carefully from day to day, and under 
her skillful tuition they blush and bloom into newer odors 
each evening. I have built stout, yet handsome, rail- 
fences on each side of the road which fronts me, with 
tan-bark walks beside them to tempt the feet of the weary 
wayfarer. 

Along the fences, up and down the road, you ma)- see 
growing ornamental trees of various kinds. There is the 
Lombardy poplar, the noble spire which seems ever point- 
ing an admonitory finger to the heavens — a more graceful 
and inspiring sight than your "high church-steeple" — my 
steeple being erected by God himself. There is the silver 
maple, showing its white teeth laughingly whenever the 
slightest breeze comes by and tickles it. There, too, is 
the acacia, graceful as the prettiest of the graces, ever 
holding out a generous shade to the passer-by, and hos- 
pitably inviting him to rest himself awhile from the heat 
of the day. There they stand in pleasant array, those 
trees — side by side. When my wife looks along the road 
in the twilight, and sees them standing there so trim and 
orderly, she says she feels safe from harm. They look to 
her like an unconquerable army in line of battle for the 
night, sheltering her dear homestead from any rude 
invasion. Nor can I gaze at them, either when I rise at 



36 Russet Leaves. 

morning or lie clown at night without calling a blessing 
upon them. 

I am now and ever have been very fond of trees. I 
love to look upon them in Spring, when they are begin- 
ning to dress themselves in their green clothes, and to 
hang rubies, and cai-nations, and diamonds upon their 
arms. I love them in Fall, when they are holding out 
their hands full of fruits, and asking all to come and help 
themselves. In late Autumn they are lovable, when, 
taking upon themselves the pride and glory of kings who 
know that they have suppHed the bins and cellars of their 
subjects, they begin to clothe themselves in purple and 
gold, and jDrepare gorgeously to do battle with that dread 
monarch, the Wind, who too soon despoils them of their 
splendid apparel. In Winter they are glorious to look 
upon, as, in their desolation and nakedness, they still 
fight on, knowing that they will yet come out "more than 
conquerors." But most of all do I love them in midsum- 
mer-time. Their presence is grateful to the landscape — 
grateful to the eye — grateful to the heart — as they extend 
their broad, thick umbrage to the wayworn traveler. 

Yon meadow-elm, in my meadow, on a hot Summer 
day seems to fling a coolness from its black shadow for 
hundreds of yards. The cows, as they pass near it, turn 
their heads and snufF toward it, as if they would like to 
taste of its luscious leaves, or lie down and ruminate 
upon the soft grass which covers its roots. It wooes to 
its branches the birds, who, in its whispering leaves, sit 
and sing, or tell their loves and sorrows to each other. 
Under its shade I often lie at ease, looking beyond at 



Russet Leaves. yj 

that concave, blue-vaulted tent, the sky, studded with its 
million fleecy clouds, 

" Scattered imiiieiisely wide from east to west, 
The beauteous semblance of a flock at rest." 

And on a windy day this tree is a graceful spectacle, 
while swaying to and fro, as if ready to take its depart- 
ure for higher altitudes— Monsieur Godard's monster bal- 
loon transferred, seemingly, to my fields, and painted with 
variable greenery. 

The other day, while reconnoitering my grounds for 
the purpose of making improvements, in one held, on a 
smooth knoll, I saw a tree which was, even at this gay 
season of the year, as naked and skeleton-like as its forest 
brothers in dead Winter. It seemed a majestically formed 
thing, wreck as it was. When in health, tilled with its 
breeze-loving leaves, it must have stood proud, strong, 
and beautiful— a perfect cone— a shade that a poet may 
have dreamed under. What, I thought, could have occa- 
sioned the death of so sightly an object.? I surveyed its 
fine trunk, and found that it had been "girdled." Some 
ruthless Vandal, walking by, ax in hand, had driven the 
hard steel through its bark ia a complete circle. The 
blood oozed from its noble heart, and its life was gone 
forever. May its gaunt shadow haunt him nightly in his 
dreams! Years and years this tree had been growing. 
It had wooed joyously the first breath of the Springs, 
and mustered all its great strength to struggle with the 
Winter tempests. God had smiled upon it his sunshines 



38 Russet Leaves. 

and wept over it in his rains — had called it blessed and 
bidden it thrive. And who knows how many a downcast 
pilgrim may have laid aside his burden underneath its 
branches, and slept there, sheltered from the dews of 
night or the heat of day ! 

. . , But now its usefulness is over ! And I must 
leave it standing, long as it may — a monument of man's 
shamelessness and cruelty. 

A kingly white-oak at the end of the farm, on the road, 
was also once girdled, in the night, when myself and fam- 
ily were asleep. I know not what vagrant iconoclast did 
the deed. But may the curse of Caliban light on him, 
whoever and wherever he may be ! May the ax fall use- 
less from his palsied hand, henceforth and forever ! 

You may judge how anxiously I watched, from day to 
day, the oak's expected decay. It seemed to me that its 
leaves gradually sickened, thinned themselves amid the 
tougli branches, and pattered solemnly to the earth, like 
the tears of an agonizing giant. But when, next Spring, 
I saw the woodland monarch putting on its green robes 
as of old, and smootliing its grand face deftly in the sun- 
shine, defying the wound which liad been struck at its 
heart, I was glad. I knew then that it was destined to 
live on, even while I should live, and be, perchance, the 
inheritance of future generations. 

It pains me to the quick when I see a tree with half- 
decaying branches, struggling, in a manner, for tlie breath 
of life. Each hearty wind as it passes by gives spirit and 



/?irssET Leases. 



39 



fresliness to it, as to a dying man. And when I see a 
farmer unnecessarily plying his ax upon one, I feel as if 
he were committing a murder. 

For O, what tender memories they seem ever whisper- 
ing to us through their trembling lips — those old trees ! 
Each one has its tales to tell, even in the wild dim forest — 
tales that make glad or sorrowful our hearts I 




/;o Russet Leaves. 



K Taste (xt Farm-I.ife, 




HE quiet of my library at the top of the house is 
not usually as unbroken as I wish it to be. I 
^^^ p find that tlie man who resides upon a farm has 
many cares and troubles, and that at the very moment 
when he is looking for peace and enjoyment — for a few 
hours' seclusion — he is apt to be disturbed by some irrev- 
erent token of a sinful outer world. 1 have frequently sat 
down in my attic-room, with books and other indications 
of study around me, and leaned forward to impress upon 
paper some pretty foncy before it fled, when my son Ned, 
a six-year older, or my granddad Dominic, has announced 
to me that a hog was in my potato-patch, or that a pred- 
atory cow was trampling down my favorite esculents. As 
Dominic is in his eighty-seventh year, and is just barely 
able to sun himself in the paths and grass-plats which 
radiate from and surround my humble residence, I am, 
of course, compelled to abandon my literary labors, and 
assist my willing son in expelling the invaders of my soil. 
How these pestiferous beasts succeed in getting into 
my fields, is to me a profound mystery. I find that, to 



Russet Lea p'ES. 43 

drive them out, I must either open a gate or let down a 
fence, and then I am in a perspiration before I accom- 
plish my ends, so fond do they seem of lingering amid 
tlie luxuries of my fields and patches. But they get in 
as soon as my back is turned, as if by magic. The swine 
appear to be made of India-rubber, witli a remarkable 
power of contraction and expansion, and the bovine inter- 
lopers seem to be capable of converting their horns into 
probosces with which to take down and put up rails. I 
sometimes fl)' into a terrible passion, and, I fear, utter 
sentiments that are interdicted in refined circles. My 
wife Neibelungen chides me for my unwonted eloquence ; 
granddad holds up his crutch as if to exorcise the rabid 
fiend which is stirring me ; but my boy Ned, young as he 
is, looks upon the anger of his paternal progenitor as not 
altogether inconsistent with the occasion. He is worthy 
of his sire. 

My fences are not bad fences. Winter and Summer I 
am at them, chunking up holes, displacing rotten rails, 
and putting bran new ones in their places, till those same 
fences look as checkered and striped as a convict's trow- 
sers. But all my labor is vain and useless. 

Breachy cattle and ubiquitous hogs are ever at large 
in the rural districts. The farmer never heeds the lesson 
taught by their destructiveness ; but laughs you to scorn 
if you hint that justice and honor demand his fencing in 
his live-stock carefully that they may not "worry" his 
neighbor's flourishing fields and gardens. I have reached 
the conclusion, after mature deliberation, that we ought to 
have a law coiiipcUiiig our farmers to fence in all their 



44 Russet Leaves. 

live-stock. If a human being infringes upon my domain 
in any way, what is clone with him ? He is locked up — 
chained in some manner, so to speak, that my property 
may thereafter be safe. 

Is a beast— a brute animal — so much better than a 
iiuman animal that it should be indued with greater priv- 
ileges ? I demand of our legislators protection in our 
property rights from the invasion of horned and cloven- 
footed creatures, whose appetites are so partial as to carry 
them every-where except upon their owners' premises. 
Let it be understood that the man who has a farm so 
poor that he can not feed his stock upon it, shall either 
sell or kill such stock, and not fatten them from the stores 
of other people. 

For these sentiments I know not whether my farmer 
readers will call me a radical or an old fossil. It depends 
very much upon the light they have. If they are from 
some " far countree," and are highly rapt with the new- 
ness and originality of American institutions, they will 
call me an old fogy, or an interpolating foreigner, and say 
that I want to introduce the customs of some parts of 
Europe among our own. If they are natives of the 
Western Hemisphere, and were born and bred in the 
broad, rough, and untinished West, tiiey will call me a 
reformer, and suspect me of desiring to upset the old 
standard of things, which they have always regarded as 
good enough. Their ancestors, from time immemorial, 
got along very well with the present condition of things, 
and, in good sooth, why should not tJiey ? 

But I am neither an old fogy nor a rachcal. I merely 



I^USSET Leai'es. 45 

consider myself as one who has determined to look at life 
and all its belongings on the sensible side, and adopt as 
my motto the golden precept, "As ye would have others 
do unto you, even so do ye unto them." My cattle and 
pigs are never found in my neighbors' fields. They are 
never known to put themselves in positions for having 
their ribs broken by fiercely hurled missiles, or their ears 
and snouts torn by some unconscionable dog. I never 
permit the temptation of my neighbors' green pastures 
and luscius cabbage-gardens to attract them. Inclosing 
a part of my little domain for tlie benefit of my bovine 
and equine possessions, they ruminate or roll, according 
to inclination, the placidity of their lives unruffled by a 
breeze. A large, strong pen of logs is the habitation of 
my hogs. There they luxuriate in sIojds from the kitchen, 
alternated by occasional ears of corn, and grow fat and 
oily, at their leisure — preparing themselves gratefully, as 
it were, for my Winter larder — and never dreaming that 
other hogs are lounging upon the highway, "financiering" 
for an early lodgment in somebody's potato-patch. 

This plan, of course, is not an original one with me ; 
but it is good enough and economical enough for universal 
acceptation. The farmers in the Old World adopted some- 
what the same plan years ago. 

If you travel through Germany, and many other parts 
of Europe, you will put league upon league behind you 
without seeing a fence. Hill after hill, and vale after vale, 
roll before you, in checkered and delicious loveliness, filled 
with all the grains and grasses conceivable, and in the pos- 
session of a thousand different landlords, yet not one such 



46 Russet Leaves. 

unsightl}- structure offends the eye. Why ? The Euro- 
peans confine their cattle within inclosures, and throw their 
teeming fields open to the road. 

It may be said that the Europeans do this on account 
of the scarcity of timber, and not from a kindly dislike of 
intruding on their neighbors' crops. Well, although our 
forests are so thick now, we are warned in many ways to 
be more economical in the use of them. Even in the 
West where wood is most plentiful, on account of its cost 
we are at last compelled to use bituminous fuel in the 
larger towns, the supply of wood for the purpose growing 
scarcer every year. We have, in fact, been wasting our 
forests to such an extent within the past decade, that the 
time seems not far when the expense of building farm- 
fences will be as great in this country as in Europe. 

There is another reason why our farmers should begin 
the habit of building fewer fences, and preserving their 
timber-lands : The fertility of the soil itself depends upon 
the presence of trees. 

Every man of experience and observation has noticed 
the effect which the cutting away of trees has upon the 
water supply. In places where woods once grew, and 
where the brooks, rivers, ponds, and springs were numer- 
ous, all have disappeared together. The woodman's ax 
has converted many a fertile country into a sterile ciesert. 
Four centuries before Christ, philosophers had made the 
discovery that the mightiest rivers are at the outset cradled 
in a leaf, through whose veins they creep and trickle be- 
fore their descent to earth. Trees, therefore, were sur- 
rounded with an investiture of superstition as the parents 



Russet Leaves. 47 

of fountains and streams. Standing on the tops of mount- 
ains, they spread forth their arms to catch and imprison 
the passing clouds, which, in their embrace, condense into 
water, descend to the ground in drops, and percolating 
through moss and grass into the soil, find their way 
through the heart of rocks to the various springs in the 
valleys below. Knowledge, however, in the heads of phi- 
losophers is like moisture in the peaks of lofty mountains, 
of no use to mankind till it descends to a lower level, and 
is possessed by the common people. 

The Canary isles, when first discovered, were clothed 
with thick forests. A great part of these woods was de- 
stroyed by the first settlers : the result has been the les- 
sening of the rains and the dwindling away of the springs 
and brooks. The aridity of the interior of Spain is owing 
to the hatred of the Spaniards to trees. Many districts in 
France have been injured in respect to climate on account 
of denuding the earth of its healthiest vegetation. The 
maritime regions of Algeria are remarkably dry, owing to 
the native husbandmen cutting away the arborescent pro- 
ductions. In Persia — that land so long the theme of the 
poet on account of its beauty— most of the uplands are 
now bare, barren, stony, and dry, so that for many days 
the traveler finds nothing to drink but the water he carries 
along with him in a leathern sack. When there existed a 
government in the land worthy of the name, things were 
very different. Then groves were planted on eminences; 
then the banks of streams were fringed with woods; then 
the crests of chains and ridges gloried in their primeval 
forests, which sheltered beasts of the chase, and formed 



48 Russet Leaves. 

the favorite resort of the intrepid hunter and the medi- 
tative sufi. Then the pilgrim found springs of sweet water 
bubbhng forth from every hill, where he could quench his 
thirst, and eat his noonday lunch beneath groves of orange 
and citron trees, which loaded the atmosphere with their 
perfume. But the glory of this goodly heritage has gone, 
with its groves and trees, torn away by the rude hands of 
the ''cultivators of the soil." 

On the other hand, I might mention instances where 
the planting and cultivation of trees in barren countries 
has made the waste places to bloom with gladness — the 
increasing of the woodlands bringing rain and moisture. 

In Egypt, since the industrious cultivation of the palm- 
tree, the land is gradually resuming its pristine vigor — the 
Father of Nature, who loves trees, which he plants widely 
and richly where man does not despoil his work, smiles 
graciously upon the labor of the husbandman, and sends 
his clouds and showers, pregnant with life to the yearning 
soil. When the English took the Mauritius from the 
French, the too enterprising colonists cut down the trees 
from the rich hill-tops, and replaced them by cultivated 
tields. Very shortly it was noticed that the streams were 
shrinking; that one spring after another very mysteri- 
ously disappeared ; that the green of the meadows changed 
to a dusty brown ; that the grain soon grew up thin and 
hungry ; and that the earth ceased to be productive. The 
periodical rains in due time cleared away from the culti- 
vated country, leaving it exposed to the rays of a fiery 
sun, which scorched up and withered every thing for the 
want of a perennial moisture. The next step was, with 



Russet Leaves. 49 

all possible speed, to reclothe the mountains with forest 
and jungle, upon which, as experience proved, the fertility 
of the soil depended. Since then all the land on the 
crests of hills and mountains has been retained in the 
hands of government, to be devoted to forest. The effect 
is beneficial. 

I have given the Western farmer sufficient warning. 
His pioneer ancestors hewed away the forests with a reck- 
lessness that is appalling, and seem to have handed down 
the fatal passion to their posterity. I almost dread to 
reflect upon the consequences, unless a change occurs in 
the habits of the Western husbandman in this particular. 

Why should not our lawmakers take the subject in 
hand ? The Agricultural Bureau, at Washington, at one 
time recommended the planting and fostering of trees 
throughout tlie country, in order to maintain the product- 
iveness and beauty of the land. The States — which 
doubtless have the power — should at once adopt the sens- 
ible recommendation, and pass the proper laws for the 
preservation of forest trees : — and the first of these will be 
a law requiring the negligent and unthrifty farmers of this 
fruitful country to confine their cattle within inclosures. 

4 



50 Russet Leaves. 



IX. 



To the B^lou^d Spring, 



J )*i?INCE all the poets write of thee, O Spring! 
lh~^'-i Why may not I, a humble soul, 

Snatch a stray feather from Apollo's wing, 
And of thy radiant beauty sing ? 

Why may not I seize Fancy's bowl. 
Dip it in Hyppocrene, and drink to thee, 
Maid of the dewy lip and tearful e'e ? 



On the red hill I see thy form. 

Half naked, yet all loveliness, reclining ; 
And thy glad music chides the sad and pining 
Winter away, with all his sullen storm. 
I feel thy breath, gracious, and sweet, and warm, 
Creeping amid my hair, and thy soft arm. 
Clasped with rosy bands, is drawn around me. 
Till I do feel as if Elysium bound me. 



Russet Leaves. 53 

I love thee, my sweet Spring. I love thy eyes, 
All lit with gladness, and thy blushing cheek ; 

And I am sad, when thou art sad with sighs ; 
Or if a cloud is on thy brow so meek. 

Or thine eye dim with looking on the skies, 

I watch thy sad dejection, till the tears 

Come dripping o'er thy face ; then, then my fears 

Sudden evanish : for I see thee smile, 

And the tear glistening in thine eye the while ! 

I am a simple poet, true — 

A silent wanderer in the vale of song ; 
Yet O, dear Spring, I often walk with you 

By the green wood, where, trembling, crawls along 
The snaky rivulet, and where the blue 

Sky peeps the leaves among. 
And laughs at us — and ah ! not vainly sue 
For kisses from the dewy lips which bring 
Such odorous rapture to my spirit. Spring ! 

O, when thou 'rt gone away — 

Faded from nature like an Eden dream — 
And Summer's tyrant ray 

Smiteth remorselessly the shrinking stream. 
Say, bright one, say — 
How shall I spin me out the weary day ? 
By looking from my window at the trees. 
As they droop faintly in the idle breeze — 
By listening for the birds that will not sing. 
And longing for thee, soft and dew-eyed Spring ! 



54 Russet Leaves. 



^ Blorning Sketch. 




WEETLY bloom the vernal meadows in the morn- 
ing ray, 
When the night of gloomy shadows silent steals 
away, 
And the dewy verdure glanceth on the new-born day. 

Lo ! the birds are trilling, trilling sweet songs to the sun. 
As he Cometh o'er the hill-top, wrapped in shadows dun ; 
And the streams are smiling at him — smiling as they run. 

Hark ! how dimly, dimly ringing, stealeth on my ear. 
Through the perfume of the meadow, sounds I love to 

hear : — 
'Tis the sheep-bell's merry jingle stealeth on my ear. 

From yon cottage, where the farmer liveth at his ease, 
The blue smoke is faintly curling, and the balmy breeze 
Bears the dim and sleepy spirit far above the trees. 



Russet Leases. 



55 



See the pale, thin clouds a-floating o'er the matchless sky 
O, with what a silent motion are they passing by ! — 
Fading, fading into ether— see ! they melt, they die ! 

Ah, thou soft, harmonious morning, lovely as thou art — 
Full of holy hope and beauty— soon wilt thou depart, 
Leaving all as sad and lonely as my beating heart ! 




56 Russet Leaves. 



XI. 



Contentment. 



W^ FTTIMES I fling me on a mossy hill, 
}^i^^3^ Beneath the shade of some o'erarching tree, 
>is^/\ty p^^(\ listen to the hum of breeze and bee, 

And modest melody of bird and rill. 
Serene Contentment dwelleth ever here, 

The purest spirit of my leafy cell ; 

And Love and Joy surround me with a spell ; 
And Hope, the daughter of the dawning year, 
Sings music to me, chasing all things drear. 

O, happy fairies of my solitude ! 
Companions of my silent, silvan hours ! 
I would that Spring, with her young band of flowers, 

And you, ye happy, heart-delighting brood. 

And I, might ever dwell in this breeze-haunted wood! 



J?uss£ T Lea ves 57 



XII. 



Twilight ¥^rses. 




LOVE to sit me on some hill, 
^A>^ In the dim twilight, 
K^^l When earth is motionless and still, 

And the owl his flight 
Takes through the silent, solitary air, 
And seems a melancholy spirit moving there ! 

When the gray old hills look, far away, 

Like clouds 
Painted against the cold blue sky, 
As the shrouds 
Of the dead Sun and Day are wavering o'er 
Their star-crowned summits hoar. 

I die amid thy breezes, soft Twilight ! 

Those isles above, 
Gemming the archipelago of Night, 

Seem full of love — 
Love that the loftiest poet ne'er may paint : 
In such effulgence all my soul is faint! 



58 Russet Leaves. 

I feel the presence of a God 

In this still hour ! 
I look upon the sky, and He is there ; 

The modest flower, 
Filled with refreshing dew, peeps from the sod. 
And seems to feel the presence of a God. 

And the dying air, which lingeringly creeps 

Among 
The drowsy woodlands, faint and slow, 
Still hath a tongue 
To whisper to my heart, in accents fair. 
That God is here, and there, and every-where ! 




Russet Leaves. 59 



XIII. 



Spring-^ ause Jicquamtancjes. 



. ^i»r LTHOUGH a pleasant breeze comes from the 
'^(f^ West, and passes along our country hills and 
-^^^T^-sJ^ valleys, undulating the fields of grain, and bring- 
ing cool odors with it, yet sometimes the Summer sun 
pours down a heat that is, perhaps, as sweltering as the 
reflected sunshine of the parched and dusty city. Occa- 
sionally the wind is hushed — not enough stirs to sway 
the lightest gossamer that hangs tremblingly from the old 
roof of the spring-house. On such occasions I leave my 
cozy den in the attic, and seek the cool retirement of the 
limestone building, amid pans and crockery-ware, and the 
quiet whisperings of the spring-brook. 

Water dropping from high places or gliding over peb- 
bly surfaces seems to have a peculiar effect on the atmo- 
sphere. Visit the fountain, where it spurts up far into 
the air, falling in mist and spray to the earth again, and, 
however sultry may be the day, you will find the air in 
that locality awakened into magical freshness, and the 
feverishness removed entirely from the atmosphere. So 
in the spring-house : as the breeze of this pleasant spot 



6o Russet Leaves. 

is gently pulsated by rushing water, I pass here some of 
the happiest hours of Summer. 

With my hat and coat off, my shirt-sleeves rolled up, 
and my shirt-collar turned back, a la Byron, giving the air 
free access to my neck and bosom, I lean back in a corner, 
and read "Spring Musings," "A Day on the Adirondack," 
or some such bit of breezy literature. Or, if I do not read, 
I dream, and picture fancies of my own till twilight warns 
me home. 

A very happy, lazy way of passing the time — methinks 
I hear you say — while our hard-fisted yeomen are in the 
burning fields, building up our country's wealth — and their 
own. 

Just so ! 

But, you know, the same all-wise Providence that cre- 
ated the bee and the ant created also the butterfly and the 
peacock. Were not these designed for some wondrously 
necessary purpose ? 

If I am endowed by Nature with the nice faculty of 
enjoying the murmurous solitude of spring-houses during 
the heats of the Summer solstice, who shall say me nay ? 
Let him throw the first stone, who hath not some similar 
weakness in his character. 

Besides, I do sometimes labor, as the condition of the 
fences around my little home abundantly testify. Those 
ornamental trees lining the road in front of me will, in 
future times, whisper my name to the traveler who reposes 
in their shade : they were placed there by my hands. The 
young orchard, springing so beautifully into maturity on 
each side of me, will bear fruit in a few years ; and as I 



Russet Leaves. 63 

pluck and eat, I will feel proud of the fact that, had 1 not 
planted it, the spot where it stands might have been des- 
olate ! Need I speak of the seasons in which I have 
cultivated Indian corn in the little patch set off for that 
purpose near my humble domicil, hoeing and covering the 
grain, while Neibelungen — a country-bora lass— dropped 
the seed ? Ah ! those days of labor — my bones ache to 
think of them ! But Nature never slights the farmer — 
{farmer! ''up, my beaver!") — who does his duty toward 
the soil. Many an Autumn day have I eaten roasting- 
ears of my own raising, and in Winter-time indulged in 
corn-dodgers ground from the otTspring of the seed which 
we have sowed in Spring ! Nor let it be considered as 
vaunting when I say, further, that, in the cool mornings 
and evenings of Summer I often visit the "sauce-garden," 
and, with hoe or rake, titillate the ricli earth till it smiles 
with esculent vegetation. So, you see I am not, after all, 
so greatly butterjlyish and peacocky. There is a tritie of 
the bee in my nature, forsooth. 

Yesterday, at even the early hour of nine, the heavens 
were burnished brass and the earth an oven. "Spot" 
and " Rosy" stood in the pool, breast-deep, and lashed 
their panting sides with damp caudal appendages. The 
coldest-blooded birds had sought their nests in the wood ; 
the domestic fowls stood under the trees or in tiie shadow 
of the house, with bills agape and drooping wings; even 
the slimy lizard basked out of the sunlight, inert and 
stupid. From the distant meadow came to my ear the 
frequent clink of the whetstone as the mower sharpened 



64 Russet Leaves. 

his scythe, often seeking the umbrage of a lofty elm for 
that ostensible purpose, though really to get out of the 
heat. He paused to look, with reluctant eyes, upon the 
odorous timothy flaming in the sun, and returned to his 
labor with a sigh. 

You may be sure that the close attic-room was no 
tempting place for me on such a day ; and, taking a couple 
of duodecimo companions from my library shelves, I 
sought my Summer afternoon quarters in the spring- 
house. 

In my numerous visits to this old building, on very hot 
days, I have noticed that, besides being a favorite resort 
of mine, it is also, apparently, a resort for other hving 
creatures, who, tempted by the purity and sweetness of the 
place, go thither to pass a happy hour. 

Such was the case yesterday. 

A gay little mouse, at my approach, hurried through a 
cranny in the wall, and disappeared. A shining lizard 
peered at me curiously with his glistening eyes, but was 
either too indolent or too sociable to move from his posi- 
tion. A frog stood up to his knees in the cooling stream, 
looking as solemn as a judge pronouncing sentence of 
death. A handsome garter-snake crawled along the wall, 
tempted, no doubt, by the scent of cream, and thrust out 
his forked tongue at me as I looked in. A couple of lithe- 
limbed spiders had built their tenuous habitations on each 
side of the doorway, and were lying in wait for a "sucker," 
now and then darting forth and suspending themselves in 
the air, as if to look about and see what was going on in 
the world. Or, may be, they came out, in this manner to 



Russet Leaves. 65 

invite, with their seductive courtesy, some unsophisticated 
country insect to enter their beautiful, highly ventilated 
palaces, and cool himself. 

"Well," said I, "here's company for a hot day — quiet, 
pleasant company, too ! These creatures will not trouble 
me with senseless disputes on politics or religion, nor give 
me friendly advice on my many shortcomings. They 
please me. Keep your places, ye innocent members of a 
happier race than that of man ! I am no tyrant to inter- 
rupt your amusements or interfere with your tiny luxuries." 

I do n't know whether the frog and the lizard and the 
garter-snake and the spiders understood what I said or 
not — for, you must know, I spoke aloud, and in as pleasant 
a voice as I could command — but when I took my seat in 
the corner, they all looked at me as if they were glad I 
had come. 

I always like to go where I am hospitably received, 
whether among my fellow-men or out into the world of 
nature, among the simplest of God's creatures. Give me 
solitude and silence in the forest or the desert, or on the 
mountains, or in the spring-house, in preference to the 
busy, chatty society of man, where I am neglected. Per- 
haps I am vain and selfish, but I like to be noticed. The 
Summer-day visitors of the spring-house noticed me, and 
I at once set them down as clever fellows, and knew that 
I should be at home in their company, though they should 
not speak a word. 

But they had eyes, sir ! And O, what volumes of elo- 
quent speech are there in the eyes ! What glances of 
welcome and gladness or of repelling hatred will leap forth 

S 



66 Russet Leaves. 

from the eyes, and form themselves into language ! The 
lips may sometimes coin the basest falsehoods ; but the 
eye has a lurking angel in it that turns traitor, and tells 
him who looks into its depths, " The voice lies — believe 
it not." 

And so, whenever I wish to know whether I am wel- 
come at a friend's, I watch to see what his eyes say to me. 
When the voice and the eye speak together, I know that I 
am in the presence of an honest man — and my spirit goes 
out to his in love ! 

The spiders left their webs as soon as I took my seat, 
and commenced cutting fantastic and elfish capers in the 
doorway — trending down to the spring-brook by their 
flimsy rope-ladders, wetting their feet in the water, and 
darting back again to their palaces, like fairy kings and 
queens, covered all over with sparkling jewels. The lizard 
did not move, but, as his face was toward mine, he contin- 
ued to look at me steadfastly — his look of welcome. The 
frog, who had his back to me when I sat down, turned 
around quietly in the water, with a melodious croak, and 
fixed his eyes upon me, as though he would say he did 
not intend to neglect me. The garter-snake ran rapidly 
around the wall, and finally came to the ground at my very 
feet : and I gave the happy creature a nice dish of cream, 
which it proceeded at once to devour. I commenced 
reading aloud, and they all opened their eyes, sagaciously, 
listening. The mouse came to the edge of the cranny, 
peeped timidly in, and asked with his eyes if I was so 
dangerous that he might not come and listen too. 

I have often wondered, while watching animals at their 



Russet Leaves. 67 

antics, where the line of demarcation between reason and 
instinct ought really to be drawn. I have read sage books 
upon the subject, written by sage philosophers, in inflated 
rhetoric ; but, with all their wisdom, these grave and rev- 
erend seniors have never been able to throw light upon 
this point. Their arguments and inquiries lead into dark- 
ness and obscurity. An action that would be called reason 
if done by a human being they denominate instinct if per- 
formed by the lower order of animals. But it strikes me 
that reason is reason wherever it may be found, though 
among the weaker members of the Father's great family. 

I have often seen sympathy and love beaming from the 
eyes — yea, the face — of many a poor animal, which ap- 
peared to comprehend even the arbitrary language of its 
master, and would have conversed with him, if its tongue 
were not tied. 

There is a noble picture by Paul Riviere — a favorite of 
mine. A solitary old man, returned from the labors of the 
day, has fallen asleep in his arm-chair, while waiting for 
his broth to cook. It is "the long sleep" of death. His 
two dogs are leaping upon him, and show, by the inquiring 
and wondering manner with which they look into his face, 
that they more than suspect the fearful fact of his disso- 
lution. The painter has delineated in the features of the 
poor quadrupeds, naturally and touchingly, the very soul 
of canine character. Reason is tiiere, displayed in every 
attitude. The artist understands, what all must understand 
who read the nature of brutes aright, that they, as well as 
our own great selves, made thougli we are in the image 
of the Creator, have intellectual comprehension beyond 



68 Russet Leaves. 

that of mere instinct — that they are endowed with reflec- 
tion, with sympathy, something akin to the very soul of 
humanity. 

Who does not admire the susceptible temperament of 
the old Dutchman who could not part with an ugly cur 
which he possessed ? The animal was not valuable for his 
beauty. But when the honest Teuton came home at night, 
his dog ran, with joy, to meet him at the gate, — and the 
welcoming "wag of his tail" was beyond price. He could 
not sell that. 

There is, indeed, a grand chain running through the 
whole animal creation, from man to the lowest, linking it 
together in sympathy and affection ; and though voiceless 
may be the pride and the joy and the love or the hate of 
these poor creatures, their feelings speak from the eye, 
or some action, in utterances as deeply eloquent as those 
of the most enrapturing orator. 




JiussET Leaves. 



69 



^ tustic '' UeedJ' 




>^C WAS suddenly disturbed in the eloquent reverie 
which closes my last paper by something that 
sounded like a rough attempt at music. The 
author of the melody paused under a tree in the vicin- 
ity of the spring-house, and attempted to imitate a few 
of the popular airs of the day ; but somehow the music 
"flew him," and he could scarcely command the first bar. 
This was rather singular, too ; for the young fellow whose 
piping I listened to is considered a genius. He could 
manufacture any thing, from a gate-latch to a barn-door, 
just after he was weaned, and had made, at a blacksmith's 
shop, a rough jewsharp, when he was deemed too young 
to use that instrument. 

The "pipe" he was now playing upon was a rude ar- 
ticle resembling a flute, which he had made from an elder- 
reed, and, though rough in mechanism, it was not devoid 
of melody. Its effect upon my spring-house companions 
was singular, to say the least. I had often heard that ani- 
mals of every description are affected by musical sounds ; 
but this was the first time I had ever witnessed the fact. 



70 Russet Leaves. 

The frog pouclied out his throat, and uttered a subdued 
cliirrup, as though he would like to accompany the melody 
with his bassetto tones. It is scarcely necessary to say 
that the lizard and the snake were ravished by the lad's 
rustic efforts ; for it is well known by every body that 
these cold-blooded creatures have a remarkable predilec- 
tion for all kinds of harmony. 

I was astonished, however, at the effect produced upon 
the spiders. They darted hither and thither through their 
webs, or rushed to meet each other at the top of the door- 
way, and seemed to be in delighted consultation over the 
curious melody that greeted their ears. 

A fly — a great, burly fellow, all fat and juicy, and with 
a hum like a top's — got into one of the webs, and beat his 
wings with sucli furious rapidity against his prison-bars, 
that I could hear him even where I sat ; but the spiders 
were so music-mad that they did n't pay the least attention 
to him. They e'en let him beat away, till he finally made 
his escape, and they lost a nice meal. 

My little mouse was as much pleased as the other ani- 
mals, and laid his ears back and threw such bright sparkles 
from his eyes, that I thought he was going to laugh out- 
right. 

If my companions had not been so highly delighted 
with the sound of the uncouth instrument — of torture., it 
was to me — I should have soon sent the embryo musician 
on his way. But the gratification of looking at them in 
their happiness more than compensated me for the rack 
of nerve that might have been occasioned by the untaught 
strains of this young emulator of Pan. 



R ussE T Leaves. 71 

If you think I am not fond of music, you are mistaken. 
I like it, whether it be the music of a key-bugle, a flute, or 
a forest-bird ; though, to be sure, I am not to be charmed 
by every melody. The simpler the air, the sweeter it is to 
me. I care not for the clangor of a full orchestral over- 
ture, where the keen ear of a musical detective is required 
to ferret out the various notes in the fierce clamor — and 
the enjoyment lies in the agonizing labor of catching the 
sounds correctly as they toss about the ears. There is to 
my mind more slight-of-hand than genuine melody in such 
music — as if Signor Blitz, the conjurer and juggler, should 
be turned into notes for the benefit of enthusiastic connois- 
seurs. No : give me the inspiring harmony of the simple 
ballad, when trilled by an educated voice or blown sweetly 
through the vent of a bugle or flute. Even the pretty 
Sabbath air which I heard Neibelungen sing, this morning, 
to cheer her labors, is more precious to my spirit than the 
instrumentation of the best performers, imitating the Cat- 
aract of Niagara or the way the water comes down at 
Lodore. 

If the young man, with his reed, had performed the 
notes of the simplest air correctly, I should have been well 
gratified to listen to him, and should have encouraged him 
in his efforts. But, as it was, I could only tolerate his 
presence for the sake of my companions. Their ears, 
unaccustomed, doubtless, to a " concord of sweet sounds," 
uneducated to even the rudest forms of melody, were sat- 
isfied, yea, enravished, with what a human being would 
consider harsh and unattractive. 



72 Russet Leaves. 



xrv. 



Music in Jinimals, 




OU may judge, from my last paper, that I am not 
one of those who have become insane on the 
subject of music. In the calm seclusion of the 
country I am best pleased with musical sounds. Those 
glad beings that " make vocal the woods," are not entirely 
unnoticed by me whenever I hear their pleasant voices. 
Their tones come fresh and entrancing, as from the very 
presence of the Creator himself. In the unbroken coun- 
try, especially of a still night, even the harmony produced 
by artificial means affords much gratification. The sounds 
appear, in fancy, to come down from those orbs which, the 
bards tell us, are so full of melody. 

I recollect having once heard, at night, the full-throated 
song of an American mocking-bird. It was one of those 
still, lovely nights that follow the close of a Western Au- 
tumn day. The whole sky seemed to be dreaming of love, 
and the earth reflected its quiet happiness. I had wheeled 
out a big arm-chair in front of the door of our country 
cabin, and was seated between its easy arms, looking at 
the stars, when the bird commenced. I do not see why 



Russet Leaves. y^ 

Milton has called the nightingale a "most melancholy 
bird," if its tones at all resemble those of the American 
singer. I was entirely carried away. I forgot every thing. 
I could not possibly have asserted, as my soul swelled 
with the rich music poured into it, that I was on the earth. 
All the stars in the sky seemed to melt into the dewy ten- 
derness of angel eyes, as the bird sung to them. If you 
have ever heard the mocking-bird at night you can appre- 
ciate my felicity. Language is vain to describe it. When 
the song ceased I looked around, scarcely conscious of my 
whereabouts. My dog Fido sat at my feet, his ears erect, 
and his eyes dilated, as if he, too, was conscious of the 
beautiful and the divine harmony that had awakened the 
quietness of the hour. 

Many animals besides mocking-birds, and animals, too, 
of seemingly the most unmusical disposition, have been 
known to enjoy musical sounds. Every body has heard 
of " musical mice ;" yet how many persons there be who 
seem skeptical as to the existence of such animals. That 
there are mice having a taste for music, and with the 
power of giving musical entertainments, can not be gain- 
said. A particular friend of mine, and one whom I can 
trust, says he once possessed a pet owl which had been 
taught to sing very much like a thrush. And if an ugly, 
frightful owl may learn to utter pleasant sounds, why may 
not a delicate, smooth-skinned, beautiful mouse that would 
not harm a butterfly ? 

A young gentleman, with whom I am acquainted, is 
fond of practising upon the ophicleide. Once upon a 
time — being, like most talented musicians, not very rich 



74 Russet Leaves. 

in purse— he occupied a garret, so near the upper, outer 
air, that he could sometimes see the moonlight gleaming 
through the crevices of the roof and checkering the shad- 
ows on his floor. It happened that the garret was not as 
lonely as it might be ; for a certain mouse — "a lovely, litde 
fellow," my friend said — would creep out upon the floor, 
near his very feet, when he was indulging himself with 
the ophicleide, for the obvious purpose of listening to the 
music. My friend felt an unusual pride in watching the 
antics of the litde fellow during the musical performance. 
Not for any thing would he have disturbed the admirer of 
his amateur performances. There was something truly 
encouraging, he thought, in the manner in which the little 
creature would prick up its ears and listen, or hop around 
the floor in delighted forgetfulness of his presence. The 
sounds of the instrument had destroyed every particle of 
fear in the mouse. It was my friend's pleasure, every 
night, on retiring from his labor, to take his ophicleide and 
call upon his quiet companion, who invariably appeared. 
But one night he came not at the usual call. For several 
nights afterward the instrument was played in vain. The 
little creature never again made its appearance alive ; and, 
for a wonder, after its disappearance the ophicleide refused 
to yield the notes with its former ease. My friend was not 
so superstitious as to attribute this sudden inefficiency of 
his brazen favorite to the disappearance of the little elf 
who had been so fond of its harmony ; but concluded, like 
a sensible man as he is, that his horn needed repairing. 
He carried it to a musical instrument manufactory, — and 
lo ! on examination, the mouse was found imbedded in its 



Russet Leaves. 75 

melodious interior. The little fellow, in love with the 
sweet sounds that came from the ophicleide while in my 
friend's hands, had crept into it during his absence, doubt- 
less with the wish to partake in secrecy of the notes which 
it believed to be there, and had thus met its melancholy 
end. 

Testimony is not wanting, from the newspaper press, to 
establish the fact tliat mice are musical creatures. The 
Buffalo Commercial relates a curious incident developed 
at the American Hotel, in Buffalo. A family, having 
rooms in that hotel, left town for a few weeks. On their 
return, they found that a mouse was in the habit of con- 
stantly visiting the cage of a Canary-bird which had re- 
mained in the room during their absence, having taken the 
opportunity of forming the acquaintance during the unu- 
sual stillness of the apartment. To the surprise of the 
family, it was found that the mouse had been taking les- 
sons in singing, of its musical friend, and would constantly 
give forth notes in exact imitation of the Canary's tone, 
but low and sweet. The little creature, even after the 
return of the family, visited the cage nightly, ate of the 
seed, and endeavored, by its singing, to excite the attention 
and call forth the notes of the bird. 

A "Virginia paper, the Charleston Spirit of Jefferson, 
speaks of a musical prodigy in the shape of a mouse, in 
the possession of Mr. Aisquith, living in that section. Mr. 
Aisquith was attracted several times by a singing in his 
room, at different intervals of the night, and curiosity in- 
duced him to set a watch, and, if possible, capture his 
serenader. He succeeded at last, and caged him for the 



76 



Russet Leaves. 



inspection of tlie curious. His notes were clear and dis- 
tinct, and his imitations were of familiar songsters, such 
as the partridge, chicken. Canary-bird, etc. 

My own observation has taught me that the lower order 
of animals are not altogether as neglectful of melodious 
sounds as some wise persons may imagine. 

Sometimes, in the still Summer mornings, just before 
the sun has risen, I love to draw my arm-chair out on the 
grass before my door, and sing some trifling ditty, as I 
watch the sun reddening the heavens with a gradual light. 
These are my happiest hours, and I can sing then. 

I have observed, during these musical recreations, a 
large English bird pause near me, and seem to be intently 
listening to the song. Can it be possible, I have often 
asked myself, that this bird really appreciates my musical 
talents 1 To test the question, I have wheeled my chair to 
the other side of the house, and, to my astonishment, the 
bird has followed me : and, with one leg raised, and his 
head turned on one side, appeared to be drinking in every 
note, expressing, in the meanwhile, by the sparkle of his 
eyes, the greatest pleasure. From this circumstance, I 
have been led to the opinion that there exists, among all 
classes of animals, an undoubted taste for musical sounds. 
I am firmly of the opinion that, by a regular and stringent 
course of training, all the inhabitants of the barn-yard and 
stable may be taught to maintain an admirable and harmo- 
nious chorus. If animals were not of more value in other 
departments, on the farm, I would advise a test of their 
musical faculties. 

What would you think if you should hear a dog sing ? 



Russet Leaves. 77 

A certain traveler in Kamtschatka informs us that he has 
heard them howl the most enchanting music, in the still 
nights, as they pursued their way over the frozen snow. 
It does not seem to me that there could ever be any pos- 
sible harmony in the howl of a dog. The traveler's story 
has a Munchausonish air ; it smacks of deceit ; and yet, 
for all that, it may be true. But only think of the unique- 
ness of a dog-serenade by moonlight ! I have a certain 
liking to dogs as characters ; but I hardly think I could 
endure them as vocalists. 

We have it from the best authority, that, if dogs are 
not actually capable of giving musical entertainments 
themselves, they are yet moved powerfully by music. On 
some dogs music produces an apparently painful effect, 
causing them gradually to become restless, to moan pit- 
eously, and to display many other outward signs of suffer- 
ing and distress. Others have been seen to sit and listen 
to music with seeming delight, and even to go every Sun- 
day to church, with the obvious purpose of enjoying the 
solemn and powerful strains of the organ. 

From this you may see that dogs, after all, are not 
devoid of musical taste. In this respect they are, indeed, 
superior to certain gifted men, whose minds are not capa- 
ble of appreciating the most lovely sounds. Crabbe, who 
wrote such good poetry, could sit in a concert-room, when 
the music was in full chorus, and compose verses — not 
once dreaming of his whereabouts. We have an anecdote 
of the great lexicographer and critic. Dr. Samuel Johnson, 
who once listened to a finished piece of music from one 
of the most popular musicians of his day, and, when the 



78 Russet Leaves. 

aria was concluded, coolly asked " what it all meant." 
" That is a difficult passage," replied a friend ; " perhaps 
you did not exactly comprehend it, doctor." " Difficult !" 
retorted the giant ; " I wish it had been impossible." If 
love of music be an intellectual quality, our dogs certainly 
deserve some credit. But here I would not be understood 
as comparing, intellectually, the most intelligent dogs with 
even the least intelligent men — not to mention Crabbe or 
Johnson. The disregard for music attributed to such 
gifted men, can not deprive them of one particle of the 
glory which posterity has in reserve for them. I suspect 
that Shakspeare's advice, to trust no man " who hath not 
music in his soul," was intended to be applied to man in 
the mass, and not to individuals ; for some of the best 
men have held music in utter detestation. The harmo- 
nious echoes which awaken to joy the great soul of ani- 
mated nature are to them tasteless and insipid — a bore! 

But to return to the dogs. 

Some dogs manifest a keen sense of false notes in 
music. A familiar writer says he possesses an Italian 
grayhound which screams in apparent agony when a jar- 
ring combination of notes is produced accidentally or in- 
tentionally on the piano. These manifestations show 
what might be done, by education, to teach dogs a critical 
knowledge of sounds. A gentleman in Germany, indeed, 
actually taught a poodle dog to detect false notes in music. 
Chambers, that painstaking gatherer of queer and wonder- 
ful odds-and-ends, affirms the statement. 

The gentleman alluded to, a Mr. S., having acquired 
a competency by wise commercial industry, retired from 



Russet Leaves. 79 

business, and devoted himself, heart and soul, to the cul- 
tivation and enjoyment of music. Every member of his 
little household was, by degrees, involved more or less in 
the same occupation ; and even the housemaid could, in 
time, bear a part in a chorus, or decipher a melody of 
Schubert. One individual alone in the family seemed to 
resist the musical entrancement. This was a small span- 
iel, the sole specimen of the canine race in the house. 
Mr. S. felt the impossibility of instilling the theory of 
sounds into the head of Poodle ; but he firmly resolved to 
make the animal bear sotne part in the general domestic 
concern ; and, by perseverance and the adoption of ingen- 
ious means, he attained his object. Every time that a 
false note escaped either from the instrument or voice ; as 
often as any blunder of whatever kind was committed by 
any member of the musical family — and such blunders 
were sometimes committed intentionally — down came her 
master's cane on the back of the unfortunate Poodle till 
she howled and growled again. Poodle perceived the 
meaning of these unkind chastisements, and, instead of 
becoming sulky, showed every disposition to howl on the 
instant a false note was uttered without waiting for the 
formality of a blow. By-and-by a mere glance of Mr. S.'s 
eye was sufficient to make the animal howl to admiration. 
In the end Poodle became so thoroughly acquainted with 
and attentive to false notes, and other musical barbarisms, 
that the slightest mistake of the kind was infalliby signal- 
ized by a yell from her, forming the most expressive com- 
mentary on the misperformance. When extended trials 
were made of the animal's acquirements, they were never 



8o Russet Leaves. 

found to fail, and Poodle became the most famous, impar- 
tial, and conscientious connoisseur in the Duchy of Hesse, 
where her master resided. But, as may be imagined, her 
musical appreciation was entirely negative. If you sang 
with expression and played with ability, she would remain 
cold and impassive ; but let your execution exhibit the 
slightest defect, and you would have her instantly showing 
her teeth, whisking her tail, barking, yelping, and growling. 
At one time there was not a concert or an opera at Darm- 
stadt to which Mr. S. and his wonderful dog were not 
invited ; or, at least, the dog. The voice of the prima 
donna, the instruments of the band — whether violin, clar- 
ionet, hautboys, or bugle — all of them must execute their 
parts in perfect harmony : otherwise Poodle looked at her 
master, erected her ears, showed her grinders, and howled 
outright. Old or new pieces, known or unknown, to this 
wonderful canine critic, produced the same effect. 

So I might range up and down the quadruped creation, 
from the least to the greatest, and find in all a taste for 
music, which practice frequently develops into something 
marvelous. 

But, after all, what is the knowledge acquired by these 
poor creatures, though seemingly wonderful, when com- 
pared with the wild music of the eagle as he screams in 
the clouds ? Or what is it beside the still and silver hymn 
of some solitary forest-bird, which was born with the 
golden tongue of song? — which enraptured the mother 
bird with its voice ere it could bear itself from the nest 
with its little wings ? Your domestic animals, after much 



/^c/ssET Leases. 8i 

training, may flutter through a few incomplete notes to the 
wonder of the curious; but the song-bird of the forest 
pours, from its tongue of fire, an incessant gladness — a 
music that is as complete and divine as the ear of man 
could wish to Hsten to — a music which, even to the end, 
uplifts and inspirits the soul of the philosopher and the 
poet. 

6 




82 Russet Leaves. 



XVI. 



Music of Spring. 




ELCOME, sweet goddess of a genial clime, 
To Western lands. The woods, at thy approach. 
Swell into blooming beauty ; and the touch 
Of thy ethereal wand awakes the streams. 
The Mountain, in his snowy slumber, dreams 
He feels thy breath, and hears thy voice sublime. 

Lo, where the farmer, monarch of the soil. 
Lord of the wheaten sheaf, renews his toil ! 
All-bounteous Heaven pours out, in generous rains. 
The kindly nourishment to fields and plains. 

.... What sound is that? It falls upon my ear 
Like the faint music of another sphere : — 
Awake, my soul, and drink the enchanting strains ! 

O, silvan heralds of the dawning Spring — 
Ye woodland vocalists, thus ever sing ! 



Russet Leaves. 83 

Yours are the strains that soothe the drooping heart, 
Yours are the strains that cause the soul to fling 
Away the bonds of sorrow, and take wing 

To realms of purer bliss. Stay — why depart, 

Inspiring harmonists, this earthly shore ? 
Stay yet awhile, and cheer this weary breast, — 
For, ah ! perchance ere Spring hath gone to rest 

These feet may press the bosom of the earth no more. 




84 Russet Leaves. 



XVII. 



The Beautiful lroali» 




the Beautiful Brook there 's a pleasant place, 
Where the mud-turtle warbles his note — 
Where the tadpole wiggles his tail with grace, 
And the bullfrog tunes his throat, 
With a voice so marvelous sweet and loud, 
That it seems to descend from the fading cloud. 

That beautiful spot, witii its turtles and toads, 

With its breezes that bore along 
The breath of violets from the woods, 

And the note of the wild-bird's song. 
Was the daily resort of my boyish years, — 
And 1 think of it otten with happy tears ! 

A short bridge spanned the Beautiful Brook, — 

I see it as in a dream ! — 
Where Bennie, and I, and little Tot Cooke 

Fished for tadpoles in the stream ; 
But the tadpoles were shy, and from morn to night 
We anHed in vain for a single bite. 




'W--^^^^-^-^.- 



Russet Leaves. 87 

That good old time was a happy time, 

When Bennie, and Tot, and I, 
Kept noisy time to the bullfrog's rhyme, 

As we tished for the tadpoles shy. 
O, the wild woods rung as we wildly sung — 
To the turtles' dismay the reeds among ! 

Now little Tot Cooke is withered and old, — 

The changes of time, ah me ! — 
And Bennie, an oysterman stout and bold, 

Has a home by the far-off sea ; 
In the Beautiful Brook other tadpoles play, — 
And the short-span bridge is rotted away. 

For me will the gentle bullfrog sing 

Ah ! never, nevermore ! — 
I am borne on Time's relentless wing 

Far away from my native shore : 
Yet still would I there breathe my final sigh. 
And in my last hour hear the mud-turtle cry ! 




88 



Russet Leaves. 



XVIII. 



The MacMng-Birii. 




S it the spirit of some distant star 
Waking such melody? Or do I sleep. 
And feel this ecstasy in sunny dreams ? 
No : 't is the mocking-bird — 
The winged Apollo of the shade — 
The silvan soul of melody, 
Wiio pours his melting tones 
Into the listening ear of gaudy Day, 
As well as to the sober-featured Night. 



O, holiest offspring of the gentle Wood ! 
Enchanting bird ! we welcome to our shores, 
With the first footprints of th' advancing Spring, 
Thy stirring song. As the clear melody 
Of thy soul-rapturing music fills the breeze. 
The plowman, at his toil, a time shall pause, 
And, with delighted bosom, catch the strains. 
The tranced sea, as thy soft music leaps 
Across his trembling waters, shall stand still 
Awhile, until the Eolian sweetness dies ; 



Russet Leaves. 8g 

Then shall lie lift his mighty bosom up, 
And breathe a tender sigh upon the winds, 
As if he wished thy heavenly harmonies 
Would ceaselessly roll o'er his heaving breast. 

I listen, too, glad voice of melody ! 

Until my soul grows plaintive with thy song, 

And all my nerves pulsate with harmony ! 

O, then the Past, the Present, and the Future 

Are intertwined in my inmost heart. 

And fill my being with influences of Love — 

Love that surrounds me like a wondrous dream. 

But soft ! thy voice fiides in yon hollow grove, 
Like some stray sunbeam lost in Wintery clouds. 
Or Friendship's smile when adverse storms are near. 
Is such the silence which pervades the soul 
When happy voices die ? 

O, sing again — 
Sing while this genial season lasts, sweet bird ! 
For soon, alas ! the ungentle Winter, charged 
With bitter airs, and clothed in fleecy shroud. 
Shall drape with gloom the starry halls of heaven, 
And sing thy requiem to a listening world! 

When the last lingering sweets of Autumn melt 

In Winter's dreary waves, 

What happy, golden clime, 

Minstrel Elysian-born, 
Shall listen to the echoes of thy voice ? 



90 



Russet Leaves. 



XIX. 



To a Bird: 



HEAKD IN THE WOODS AT TWILIGHT. 




^IRD of the silken wing, 
'■^?^ Sing, airy spirit, sing 
Thy joyous lay ; 
While o'er the mountain rim 
Comes the night, faint and dim, 
Sing thy delightful hymn 
To dying day ! 



Dear spirit-bird, thy art 
Melteth the saddened heart 

Sweetly away, 
When in the solitude 
Of the gray twilight wood, 
Of the star-circled wood, 

Echoes thy lay. 



/HussET Leaves. 91 

O, I could dwell in some 
Wood, where the city's hum 

Never is heard, 
Might I there hear the note 
Of thy sweet-swelling throat — 
And on its music doat 

Ever, blithe bird ! 

In thy air-haunted grove, 
Gay-hearted bird of love. 

Pleased would I lie ; 
Under thy waving nest, 
There would I take my rest — 
There, 'neath thy hanging nest, 

Breathe my last sigh. 

And in the night of death — 
Mystic night, when the breath 

Leaveth its clay — 
Musical spirit, then 
From its clay prison-den 
Would my soul soar, and blend 

With thy pure lay. 



92 Russet Leaves 



XX. 



The l^idnight Bird. 




HE owl is booting in the old belfry ! 
-^Y': ii The Moon clings to the ragged spire of the steeple. 
''^'f^ p^j ^j^(j gathers her robes of golden glory about her, 
As if to shut out the breeze of the shivering midnight. 
Click upon click, o'er the roof of the deserted manse. 
Steal fainter and fainter the steps of belated grimalkin : 
The timorous echo awakes with a sigh as he crouches, 
Step after step, over the decaying roof-tree, 
And fades, like the ghost of a sad thought, in the still 
distance. 

Out of the dark wood, lonely — ah ! lonely and dreary ! — 
Floats the clear voice of that wiklering bird of the wild- 
wood, 
Whose melody wrings from the heart olden memories. 
In the far midnight, when unstained and eloquent silence 
Utters her discourse of love and of hope for the morrow. 
Or beckons the sorrowful shades of the Past to our 
presence, 



Russet Leaves. 95 

Comes the weird voice of this sprite of tlie gloomy old 

forest. 
Tales does it tell, as it sings in the solitude holy, 
Of friends that once walked with us in the still hours of 

the midnight, 
And laughed at its voice as it echoed, enchantingly echoed. 
Over the hills, along the high cliffs, through the valleys. 
And came to our ears in multitudinous music. 

O, sad is its song to-night — lonely and sad is its calling — 
Its calling for joys that have faded forever and ever ! 
While o'er yon brown hill that shines dim in the beautiful 

starlight, 
Its voice drops to silence, — as melts in the bosom of 

heaven 
The moonbeam, o'ercome by the cloud and the mist of 

the morning, — 
My soul longs to follow this bird on its shimmering path- 
way, 
To nestle with it in all its seclusion and quiet. 
Far from the terror and turmoil of life, and forever 
Rest with it, peacefully, in the still depths of the wil- 
derness ! 



96 Russet Leaves. 



^ looming Wish. 




OMETIMES I wish I were a morning lark ; 
For O, how pleasant it would be to wing 
My flight among the lazy clouds, and sing 

Some airy hymn, to chide away the dark ! 

And I have thought it would afford to me 
A thrill of holy rapture, when the sun, 
With his wide wand of light, waved off the dun 

And lingering shades, to wander in the sea 

Of golden glory which the lord of day 

Poured o'er the vales and mountains far away ! 

There, as the sunshine streamed upon my breast, 
Warming my heart to music, I could sing 
In highest hope, till weary grew my wing, — 

Then sink, in joyful silence, to my nest. 



J^i/ssET Leaves. 97 



Bomestic TaUeau. 




~?wRANDDAD hobbled into the house very early 
>,^ this evening, with a great gleam of exultation 
upon his venerable physiognomy. His wrinkles 
seemed to have had a dozen years at least smoothed out 
of them, and his bald forehead glowed with the fervor of 
better days. My boy Ned followed him, chirruping gaily, 
as he invariably does when something has tickled his 
baby fancy. 

" How now !" cried I ; " what is the matter with you, 
pretty ones ? Have you found a pot of gold at the end 
of some rainbow, or a bottle of the famed eHxir of im- 
mortality, that you thus shine out this evening ?" 

" Neither, neither !" they both cried simultaneously, 
the words tumbling and rolling over each other like rol- 
licking boys at play, — "we've killed a hawk!" 

" Killed a hawk !" 

Now came our turn to laugh — mine and my wife Nei- 
belungen's — and we did so without stint. The idea of my 
boy Ned, hardly capable of wielding a whip for his top, 
and my grandsire Dominic, whose voice piped in childish 

7 



98 Russet Leaves. 

treble, and who had apparently no more than sufficient 
strength to raise his crutch — the idea, I say, of these two 
innocent beings killing a strong and active bird of the 
hawk genus, was too much for Neibelungen and me, and 
we cachinated derisively. 

" Come, come, now, granddad, tell us all about it," we 
finally suggested. 

" If you do n't believe it," said the old gentleman, 
" come into the yard, and see for yourselves." 

Happy thought, that of the old man. To be sure, if 
they had killed a hawk, its carcass might be taken as evi- 
dence. So out we all went. 

And the hawk was there, sure enough. 

Dead as a door-nail. 

The chickens were shying away from its not very ami- 
able-looking remains, though a huge Shanghai hen was 
ruffling her feathers above the dead bird as if rejoicing 
over its downfall. 

It appears that the hawk had descended from his aerial 
flight to steal a chicken. Unfortunately that chicken was 
the offspring of one of the most fierce and unconquerable 
of Shanghai mothers. Unwilling to see the results of her 
laborious incubation thus torn from her, she darted fero- 
ciously upon the hawk, who would have overpowered her, 
had not Ned and granddad opportunely made their ap- 
pearance. The one with a stone, and the other with his 
crutch, soon finished the struggles of the voracious bird ; 
and its carcass now adorns my barn-door, a fearful exam- 
ple to others of the same species. 

We stood irazins: for a few moments at the hawk in 



Russet Leaves. 99 

profound silence. Granddad leaned forward upon his 
crutch, and looked into my face with an expression that 
denoted pleasure at his ability to triumph over my doubts. 
Ned had his foot ujDon the bird's wing, as if he feared it 
might come to life, and struggle again into its native em- 
pyreal. I looked sagaciously at the Shanghai hen, who 
was gathering her chickens under her wing, occasionally 
looking toward her dead enemy, nervously. Neibelungen 
stood, with her sleeves rolled up, her arms akimbo, a 
rolling-pin in one hand and a cake-cutter in the other. 
It was a beautiful family tableau. 
Ned finally broke the silence. 

" Pa," quoth he, " what makes the hawks come down 
to fight the hens ?" 

"My son," said I, in the simplest form of language I 
could command — I always like to be clear in my talk with 
the little ones— " my son, you mistake the design of the 
hawk in leaving its accustomed flight in the blue ether. 
The hawk, sir, is a bird of prey." 

My boy meditated for a few moments. He seemed to 
be questioning and discussing, mentally, the fact asserted 
by his accommodating parent. At length a thought struck 
him. 

" Are the hawks the chickens' preachers, pa ?" 
" Do listen to the child !" exclaimed Neibelungen. 
" What can he mean ?" 

" Why, pa says they are birds of prey, — and may be 
it has been praying with the chickens, and we 've been 
wicked to kill this 'un." 

" Not bad, Ned. You '11 soon be as smart as your 



loo Russet Leaves. 

daddy, if you improve thus," said I. '"But the hawk 
preys on the chickens, and not luith them. As you grow 
older, my dear boy," continued I, laying my hand encour- 
agingly on his head, " you will learn more." 

Ned seemed to be satisfied with this incontrovertible 
affirmation, and looked at his sire with an unconscious air 
of worshiping him as a modern Solon. 

" Ned," continued I, " I must put you through a small 
course of Natural History. True, you are young — very 
young, indeed, I may say. But your mind is as plastic 
as potter's clay. It will easily receive and retain whatever 
impression is made upon it, and as it grows older and 
hardens in the rugged atmosphere of worldly experience, 
that impression will be indelibly affixed. Time and study 
have taught me this, my son : the older a man becomes 
the less rapidly he learns, and the less firmly his mind 
holds that which it does learn. Take the mind when it 
is soft and yielding to the touch — stamp upon it keenly 
and persistently whatever theory you may, and, though the 
child may not know the influence of that theory, the man 
will. As he reaches mature years the teachings of his 
youth are constantly assuming new forms. Each suc- 
ceeding year he sees them in a different and higher light ; 
and in the full noon of manhood, they burst upon him 
with every point and saliency of their shape revealed, 
either as hideous things to be rejected, or as grand ideas 
leading the spirit to loveliness and joy. Do you under- 
stand me, my son V 

Ned was leaning against me, his arm clasped around 
my leg. He was sound asleep. 



Russet Leaves. ioi 

" Neibelungen, put the boy to bed. I have at least 
given him a sedative." 

Neibelungen did as I desired, and the innocent breath- 
ing of the lad upon his couch filled my paternal bosom 
with the joyous anticipation that Ned would never dabble 
in railroad stocks, nor stand as a candidate for Congress. 




Rc/ssET Leaves. 



Blorning — Boon. 



"^M 7 ^ ' where Aurora, crowned with dew, 
^^^"^ With misty locks and robe of blue, 
^^%x^- Comes from lier starlit bowers ; 
She waves her banner light on high, 
With roses strews the blushing sky, 
And leads in brighter hours. 

The Sun-king dons his robe of light, 
And from the starry arms of Night, 

In glory, breaks away ; 
He smiles upon the humble rose. 
Breathes joy to every stream that flows. 

And crowns the happy Day. 



O, proudly glow the mist-wreathed hilLs, 
And gladly laugh melodious rills, 

Each vale and wood adorning ! 
The eagle joys at parted even, 
And seeks the gleaming gates of heaven, 

To welcome in the Morning ! 



Russet Leaves. 105 

How silent sleeps the silvery lake ! 

No wave disturbs its shining breast ; 
Nor sound is heard in tree or brake, — 
All Nature is at rest. 

The birds, retired from noonday heat. 

Sit silent in the leafy bower; 
Great Nature's pulse hath ceased to beat — 
So still the noontide hour ! 

The reaper from his toil repairs, 

The forest's cooling shade to woo, 
Where earth a fairer aspect wears, 

And heaven a cooler blue. 

Thus let me seek the silent grove. 

Where rills sing sweetly to the trees, 
And roses, in their generous love, 
Give fragrance to the breeze. 

Reclining on some mossy seat. 
Let Contemplation be my friend : 
Say, is not noonday's fervid heat 
Designed for some good end ? 

Let no complaining mortal rail 

'Gainst Him who made the earth and skies ; 
This Summer noon by One was sent 
Whose ends are always wise. 



io6 Russet Leaves. 



XXIV. 



The Setting $un, 




V AR in the dim, untrodden West the wear}- Sun 
retires, 
And sends athwart the burning sky his cloud- 
reflected fires ; 
See how the distant mountains catch the glory of his 

beams, 
And bright beneath his dying ray the mountain torrent 
gleams. 

Farewell, departing orb of Day, — the dewy Twilight 

Hour, 
At thy last sigh, with pensive eye, weeps in her starry 

bower ; 
Another world, bright-beaming orb, receives thy cherished 

light, 
And we are soothed in slumber by the shadow-crowned 

Night. 



JvussET Leaves. 



107 



Yet brief— O, passing brief— will be tlie Night-Queen's 

solemn reign, 
And thou wilt mount thy radiant tiirone upon the hills 

again ; 
The birds and glowing streams will hail with joy the 

opening day, 
A.nd dew-drops leave the weeping flowers to mingle in 

thy ray. 




Ah ! there are souls who, yester eve, beheld thy fading 

beams, — 
They dwell not on the earth to-day entranced in sunny 

dreams ; 
Thy car no more for them shall sink in Thetis' watery bed; 
To them are lost thy rising rays — for they are with the 

dead ! 



io8 



Russet Leaves. 



iV Summer Shower. 




HE cool rain droppeth from the dropping clouds, 
And Earth with joy the gracious gift receives. 
As the meek Woods, in crisp and parched leaves, 
Raise their glad heads — behold ! the vapory shrouds 
Bear off in balm, like shallops o'er the main. 
The rills, and hills, and forests breathe again 
With happy music, — bright-eyed Phoebus shakes 

His golden censer o'er a sparkling world. 
The tree-toad's piping breaketh from the brakes ; 
The mellifluous bull-frogs leave the lakes. 

To cool themselves amid the rain-impearled 
Reeds that sway softly in the laughing light. 
The world is gladsome, and the sky is bright, — 
The valley glows, and glows the mountain hight ! 



Russet Leaves. 109 




Sre^n f eas. 



r MONG the many attractive and delicious vege- 
iiV 

tables whicli my country garden affords, green 

peas are the most savory. Neibelungen plucks 
them from the vine in their adolescence, before they have 
grown insipid with the harassments which time always 
brings to vegetable, as well as human, nature. This 
morning, while the dew had barely vanished from the sun- 
niest places, the partner of my bosom plucked a mess of 
these rare pods, which, if he could have lived to enjoy 
their odor as they came from the bush, would have caused 
Apicius' gourmand lips and eyes to overflow with pleasure. 
Neibelungen's practiced eye detects the pea in its virgin 
innocence — in its unalloyed babyhood— just after it has 
bloomed into palpitating life, its little form all soft and 
pulpy and abiding in the richest juices. Then she goes 
into the garden, and divorcing d-:e sweet morsel from its 
parent stock, she strips it of its tough robes, and prepares 
it for the fire. At noon it appears upon the table, with 
squirrel-pie and cranberry marmalade, — a most tempting 
picture to the epicurean vision. There it is— swimming 



no Russet Leaves. 

in sweet butler and golden cream, all warm and glowing 
from Neibelungen's skillful manipulations — a feast fit for 
gods and goddesses. 

I would, for the benefit of my readers, give a detailed 
account of the manner in which my better-half j^repares 
this Summer delicacy ; but the majority of the fair sex 
would say, " Psliaw ! that is not new ; we get up peas 
that way ourselves !" 

It is not the simply mechanical mode of arranging and 
cooking that makes the pea the sovereign of table luxu- 
ries. Keats, Shelley, and Byron, mechanically, prepared 
their intellectual feasts in very much the same manner as 
did their Grub-street contemporaries. But they had the 
genius to array language in its most delightful forms, and 
to infuse the thoughts which every body has in common 
with a rich and divine savor that ordinary mortals are 
incompetent to understand. She who puts the pea upon 
the table all lusciously and unctuously swelling with mar- 
rowy sweetness, is the genius of the culinary department. 
To the ordinary looker-on she prepares it in the ordinary 
manner ; Init, by some incomprehensible hocus-pocus, her 
cookery results in a dish of undefinable finish — exact and 
complete in its harmony of shape and flavor. You could 
nothing add to or subtract from the edible without resolv- 
it among those commonplaces of the table which have so 
little relish to the critical appetite. 

If there is any thing that the partner of my joys and 
sorrows has studied, it is the kitchen. She has ranged 
up and down the full gamut of cookery. She understands 
the keys of the palate far better than her refined and 



Russet Leaves. hi 

fascinating sister, Adelgatha, understands the keys of her 
two-thousand-dollar piano, whose melodies came pretty 
near luring my susceptible heart ere I began to value the 
unassuming qualities of the less briUiant sister. 

Most persons are great in but one thing. The indi- 
vidual who has several irons in the fire may, by great 
dexterity, succeed in making passable workmanship out 
of the whole set. But you must give your undivided 
attention to one iron, if you would manufacture something 
worthy of praise. Neibelungen is a disciple of this school 
of sentiment. If she had given her attention to poetry, 
I believe she would have rivaled "Amelia." If she had 
given her time to music, Parepa would have begun to 
keep an eye on her laurels. But her dear, kind little heart 
had no such lofty desires. It panted for an unrivaled nook 
in the bosom of husband and children. After attaining its 
wishes, that dear little heart induced the active brain of its 
possessor to do every thing for the amusement and benefit 
of an appreciative family. Marrowfat peas are the lyrics 
that breathe forth their delight ; the broom and the wash- 
board yield dearer music than tlie piano ; a neat house 
and unsuUied linen are epics grander than those of Mil- 
ton ; kind words and sweet deeds of love to all around are 
dramas that have more majesty than any of Shakspeare's. 

Little Ned is always darting in doors from his play to 
ask for a " piece " between meals, so when he comes to 
the table his appetite is gone ; but, if the peas are there, 
he thinks he has room left for them. His young palate is 
thus early beginning to hanker for that which is delicate 
and digestive. Granddad has past into the "sere and 



1 1 2 RussE T Lea ves. 

yellow leaf;" but that wliicli generally accompanies old 
age, as loss of feeling, a want of appreciation of tlie good 
things of this life, still remains with him. Neibelungen 
chains him goldenly to the pleasures of life by her de- 
lightful cookery. She titillates his failing appetite by the 
flavor of her delicious preparations. She woos him back 
to the excellences of life by her superior culinary blan- 
dishments. After a meal, produced by her labors, in 
which the green pea has stood preeminent, his eye glim- 
mers with the old boyhood's radiance, his face reddens 
roseately, and he moves from the table to his accustomed 
seat in the out-door shadow with a lighter crutch. 

Blessed be the man who discovered the green pea ! 
May he reside in Paradise with the houris, each one of 
whom shall be capable of working his discovery into a 
perpetual luxury ! Or better even than this, may he be 
permitted to return to earth again, and sit in the fair 
Summers with Ned, granddad, Neibelungen, and the writer 
hereof, and taste the savors of their table. I could wish 
him no greater enjoyment. 

Some ladies — very handsome ladies, and good cooks, 
too — have no more idea of the qualities of a green pea 
than an undevout astronomer has of the important lesson 
taught by his sidereal inquiries. They have no genius for 
catching the pea in that mysterious condition when it 
revels in the hight of its juicy raptures. They know and 
care not how soon after plucking it should be shelled 
and potted. They know not when and what quantity of 
unguents and condiments to mingle with it over the fire. 
At what time to snatch it from the vessel in which it is 



Russet Lea ves. 



"3 



growing up to proper deliciousness is to them a hidden 
myster}' ; and it goes steaming from their hands to the 
table a tasteless, insipid food, that neither men nor gods 
v/ould give a sigh for. To such I would say : Leave the 
pea alone ! O, put not the germ in the earth, to spring up 
in disgrace. Leave it to those who know its value, and 
when to find it in its better moods. 




114 Russet Leaves- 



€rossip after Ifeas. 



J, ^^ MILE not, pleasant reader ! There is such a thing 
''!^^ as degrees of abihty in cooking. There are plenty 
^ '-'"' of educated and accomplished women who do not 
know how to cook a turnip — not to mention peas — and 
there are ladies, too, without many fashionable accom- 
plishments, who, by some incomprehensible instinct, make 
perfect and delicious every dish which passes under their 
hands. 

The turnip, for instance, as usually placed upon the 
table, is the most insipid of food. But master-spirits in 
the culinary art can give it a flavor that would almost 
tempt a Bacchus from his cups. It is not necessary, I 
think, that a vegetable, in itself tasteless, should be per- 
mitted to rest upon its own merits as an edible. A scien- 
tific cook will make it the basis of a good dish, as the 
ancients were in the habit of doing. Tiie ancients, indeed, 
in those days of lu.xuriance when Greece was at the hight 
of its wealth and power, had reduced cooking to a niceness 
which some very wonderful gastronomers of our own day 
have not attained. 



Russet Leaves. 115 

The cook, in the old times, for his rare talent in pre- 
paring food for the table, was dignified by the name of 
Professor — very properly, too — and he who discovered a 
new dish was crowned with honors, and trumpeted by 
fame in the verses of the laureate. Thus many men of 
the best ability, uninfluenced by that glory which attaches 
to the successful artis^t, warrior, or poet, were proud to 
immortalize their names by the invention of a poignant 
sauce or popular confection. 

Apicius and Austoxenes were both professors of cook- 
ing. They did not labor in the kitchen, certainly; but 
they exercised their ingenuity in the production of deli- 
cacies to please the palate. One was the inventor of a 
cake which went by his name, and the other got up a 
seasoning for hams, which will make his name last till the 
day arrives when Jerusalem is repopulated by the peoples 
of earth, and hogs again become unclean. 

Archestratus I must mention, for he composed a poem 
on gastrology, and the system therein propounded became 
the creed of the epicures. He gave his whole mind — a 
good, strong, critical mind had Archestratus — to culinary 
questions. He traveled much in various lands, eating of 
every dish, analyzing the quality and flavor of its ingre- 
dients, criticising keenly its every attribute, and gave his 
opinion upon its defects and virtues with the zest of a 
statesman. Among his disciples — and who was not a 
disciple of Archestratus in that voluptuous age ? — his pre- 
cepts were regarded as codes which, rightly followed, 
would ameliorate the imperfect condition of society. 

I spoke, a few sentences back, of making some common 



ii6 Russet Leaves. 

vegetable, as the turnip, the basis of a dish. Our cooks 
should give more attention to this matter. They usually 
put the turnip, potato, or other vegetables, into a pot, boil 
them in some careless way, and place them before us at 
dinner, mashed or in quarters, with their little virtues 
boiled out of them. There is no food more wholesome or 
more simple ; and yet how the cooks do torture and man- 
ipulate them, until the salutary properties of these abi 
innoceiiies entirely disappear ! And give them a partridge 
or a snipe, a veal-cutlet or a mutton-chop, and they will so 
dish you up each savory article that nothing of its original 
flavor shall be discernible. 

Such, however, seems to be the fashion of the best 
cooks in every age. None of them are able to preserve 
the taste of edibles in the cooking. The French are cel- 
ebrated as cooks ; but the cuisine, under their administra- 
tion, is only a curriculum of gastronomal art. They give 
to flesh and vegetables the most enticing artificial flavors, 
and do not pretend to preserve those which are natural 
to them. 

The ancient professors of cookery practiced on the 
same plan. With a vegetable these remarkable artists 
could counterfeit the shape and the taste of fish and flesh 
in a manner that deceived the most accomplished glutton. 
But the best of them, if furnished with a mess of nice peas 
to cook, would never have thought of retaining the aroma 
of the esculent. They would have so disguised it witii 
foreign material that the most analytical taste would have 
failed to find a simple bouquet of the original food. 

When we come to consider the customs of various 



J^ussE T Lea ves. i i 7 

peoples in the matter of eating, we will not wonder that 
the ancient professors of cooking have obtained so great 
celebrity among civilized modern nations. Athens, Rome, 
and the rich and learned colonies which sprang from those 
great commonwealths, cooked on a settled system. They 
had furnaces, ovens, stoves, saucepans, spits, and stew- 
pans. We, of course, could not relish all their dishes ; 
their taste and ours would be often at variance. But they 
were more decent and reasonable in their ordinary style 
of living than our British ancestors, who ate flesh in the 
manner of wolves, and swilled ale and mead like nothing 
on earth but their drunken, valiant selves. Rome taught 
them better things, but they were slow to learn the valu- 
able lesson. 

It is probable that the French cooks, however reluct- 
ant they might be to admit the fact, derived the very first 
principles of their art from intercourse with Italy. The 
Medicean queens of France 'brought many things with 
them to their adopted country — among others, poisons, 
perfumes, and cookery. Paris gradually began to take the 
lead in gastronomic science ; but it was not until the reign 
of Louis the Magnificent that it reached its renown. 

In the mean time, of other national kitchens, the unc- 
tuous Spanish one, with its dishes redolent of oil and 
garlic, was the most remarkable. Russia could offer few 
native delicacies to the traveler ; a miserable mess of 
cabbage-soup, caviare, quasi, and pickled herrings being 
the chief productions of her indigenous artists. Holland, 
again, invented little save water-souchde, the boast of Low 
Country tables ; and though the British and the Spanish 



ii8 Russet Leaves. 

colonies had many a delicious titbit in the shape of fish 
or fowl, the dressing was inferior to the material. 

Turkish cookery, using the word in its broadest sense, 
so as to take in all the settled Mohammedan nations of 
West Asia, was more original in its conceptions. With- 
out dwelling on the lambs roasted whole, and stuffed with 
fruit, with spices, and occasionally with drugs, for the sake 
of a new flavor, tlie pilatT demands attention. A pilaff — 
which is neither ragout, nor mince-meat, nor even hotch- 
potch, but a wondrous mingling of all three — is just the 
succulent, greasy dish to suit the appetite of an Asiatic. 
Then the kabobs, well seasoned, broiled on skewers of 
jasmine or arbutus, and eaten without the help of forks, 
are certainly the poetry of mutton. Rissoles are as deftly 
made, and soups as skillfully thickened, by turbaned men 
as by the neatest-handed Phillis of the West. Lastly, 
the cucumber stuffed, not with pearls, but with rice and 
minced fowl, is a delight to the voyager who is so lucky 
as to be well grounded in his "Arabian Nights" before 
leaving the nursery. 

The dishes of the Asiatics are much superior, indeed, 
to those of many other nations, if w'e may believe the 
accounts of travelers. 

In China, for example, the cooks have invented some 
queer dishes. Among these a foremost place must l)e 
given to soup compounded from sharks' fins, so that they 
import every year from India twelve to fifteen tliousand 
hundredweight of them. Off Kurrachee, near Bombay, 
about forty thousand sharks are annually offered up to 
John Chinaman's eccentric taste. Then the rats ! 



J?[/ssE T Leaves. 119 

Bird's nests, too, supply the materials of a very fash- 
ionable soup. Those used are the nests of the Hirundo 
esculenta. The gathering of these nests, which are pro- 
cured from caves on the southerly coast of Java, takes 
place three times a year — in the end of April, the middle 
of August and December. They are said by those who 
have indulged in them to be composed of a mucilaginous 
substance ; but as yet they have never been analyzed with 
sufficient accuracy to show the constituents. Externally 
they resemble ill-concocted, fibrous isinglass, and are of a 
white color, inclining to red. John Chinaman has quite a 
strange penchant for dogs. This predilection is also 
shared by the ladies and gentlemen of Zanzibar, in Africa, 
the aristocracy of the Sandwich Islands, and the half- 
mannish, half-brutish aborigines of Australia. 

These Sandwich dogs are fed with peculiar nicety, and 
are considered fit for market when two years old. The 
mode in which they are cooked is somewhat peculiar. A 
hole is dug in the ground large enough to contain the 
puppy. A good fire is built in this hole, and large stones 
cast into it, to remain until red-hot. You then pile these 
red-hot stones about the sides and bottom, throw in leaves 
of odorous plants, and lay tlie dog, well cleaned and care- 
fully prepared, upon the glowing stones. More leaves, 
more stones, and, finally, some earth, are heaped upon the 
smoking dainty, until the oven becomes, as it were, her- 
metically sealed. The meat, when done, is full of delicious 
juices. 

Fashion, in Siam, prescribes a curry of ant's eggs as 
necessary to every well-ordered banquet. These eggs are 



120 Russet Leaves. 

not larger than grains of pepper ; and to an unaccustomed 
palate have no particular flavor. Besides being curried, 
they are brought to table rolled in green leaves, mingled 
with shreds of very fine slices of fat pork. 

The Mexicans make a species of bread of the eggs of 
hemipterous insects, which frequent the fresh waters of 
the Mexican lagunes. 

The Bushmen of Africa indulge in roasted spiders ; 
maggots tickle the palates of the Australian aborigines ; 
the Chinese feast upon the chrysalis of the silk-worm ; 
and the Digger Indians are said to be very fond of skunk- 
meat, or any thing they can lay their hands upon. 

The Brazilians, like our own paunciiy aldermen, have 
a passion for turtle. They have several ways of cooking 
it. Steaks cut from the breast and roasted make an ex- 
cellent dish ; the lean parts are roasted on spits, and 
sausages are made of the stomach, while the entrails serve 
as the basis of soup. The most usual method of prepa- 
ration, however, is the simple one of boiling the turtle in 
his own shell, or in kettles full of the juice of the mandi- 
oca root. Newly hatched turtles, with the remains of the 
yolk still inside them, are reckoned especially delicious, 
and numbers of immature turtles are sacrificed to this 
taste. 

The inhabitants of the Phillippine Islands indulge in 
frogs as a peculiar edible delicacy. After the rains, says a 
traveler, they are taken from the ditcli that encompasses 
the walls of Manilla, in great numbers, for they are then 
fat, in good condition for eating, and make an admirable 
curry. The French are considered as the frog-eaters, and 



Russet Leaves. 121 

it is not so wonderful that even so finished and fashion- 
able a people should be fond of these ugly, but delicious, 
animals, when their edible virtues are taken into consid- 
eration. 

The doctors of old had great faith in frog's flesh, as at 
once restorative, diluent, analeptic, and antiscorbutic, and 
invaluable in cases of consumption and affections of the 
chest. Pliny says frogs boiled in vinegar are an excellent 
remedy for the toothache. Diascorides recommended 
them to be cooked in salt and oil as an antitode to ser- 
pent poison ; and another ancient physician cured a fistula, 
or said he did, by administering a frog's heart every 
morning as a pill. 

But it was not until the middle of tlie sixteenth century 
that the frog obtained a place at civilized dinner-tables. 
Even now, French epicures confine themselves to dishes 
composed of the hind-quarters of the little reptile, dressed 
in wine, or served with white sauce. The particular spe- 
cies in favor for culinary purposes is that known as the 
Rana esculenta, or green frog, although the red frog is 
eaten in some places, and thought in no way inferior to 
his more popular relative. The frog is in the best con- 
dition for the table in Autumn, just when he takes to 
water for the Winter, but is mostly eaten in Spring, for 
the simple reason that he is easier caught at that season. 
He is captured in several ways : sometimes by means of 
lines baited with scarlet cloth, sometimes a net is used, 
sometimes a rake, or he is pursued at night with torches. 
A hundred years ago, a shrewd native of Auvergne made 
a fortune by farming a frog-preserve, from which he 



122 Russet Leaves. 

supplied the capital. Similar nurseries help to supply 
the modern demand for this peculiar luxury ; but that 
demand is gradually decreasing, although, at certain times 
of the year, plenty of frogs may be seen in both French 
and Italian markets. I believe the American frog does 
not need much cultivation. He grows naturally in our 
bull-frog ponds to suit the table, and is a rare and savory 
dish. In our fashionable restaurants, on hot Summer 
days, he may be seen on exhibition, stripped to his white 
flesh, and sitting cozily and temptingly in heaps of ice on 
a China dish. 

Dr. Livingstone speaks eulogistically of a large African 
frog, called the matlametlo, of which his children partook 
with eagerness and delight. This monster frog measures 
nearly half a foot, with a breadth of four and a half inches, 
and, when cooked, looks very much like a chicken. After 
a thunder-shower, the pools, even in the dryest parts of 
the African desert, are alive with matlametloes ; and the 
natives, not unnaturally, believe that they are born of the 
thunder-cloud, and descend to the earth with the rain. 
During the season of drought, the matlametlo takes up 
his abode in a hole of his own making at the root of cer- 
tain bushes ; and as he seldom emerges from his retreat, 
a large variety of spider spins his web across the orifice, 
and provides the tenant gratuitously with a screen. But 
the gift often proves a fotal one, serving to guide the 
hungry Bushman to the reptile's hiding-place. The mat- 
lametlo would make a worthy companion-dish to the bull- 
frog, which is considered equal to fowl wherever eaten. 

Among the various temptations to extravagance to be 



Russet Leaves. 123 

seen in the Siamese market-places, nothing astonished the 
traveler Turpin more than a number of hideous, ball- 
shaped toads, spitted ready for the cook. Judging from 
the supply, there would seem to be a general demand for 
the hau-han—2i name given to this edible toad in imitation 
of its cry, which is so loud that two of them are sufficient 
"to disturb a whole country." The common toad is hab- 
itually eaten by Africans, to whom, in fact, nothing comes 
amiss in the shape of food ; and there is small doubt that 
it is often substituted for the frog in countries where frog- 
eating prevails. 

Concerning the modes of cooking food, we might learn 
much, if we should travel with the voyager through vari- 
ous countries, in the past and the present. Arab cooking, 
you may be surprised to learn, is carried on almost entirely 
on camel-back, and on the march. Perched on the high 
camel-saddles, the women shake the light churn of goat's 
hide until the milk coagulates into curdy butter ; they mix 
flour with water, and knead up a paste, which is molded 
into thin cakes. These cakes, with the aid of a chafing- 
dish of burning charcoal and a flat iron plate, are baked 
into bread, which is eaten, hot and fresh, with the impro- 
vised butter and a handful of dates, by the tawny-com- 
plexioned men trudging painfully beside the line of laden 
beasts. That is enough sustenance for the every-day life 
of the frugal Bedouin. On high holidays, when a feast is 
called for, a hole is dug in the ground ; it is filled with 
charcoal and large stones, and fire is kindled until the 
stones are red-hot. Then a whole sheep, stuffed with 
pistachio-nuts, rice, raisins, or nothing, is thrust in, with 



124 Russet Leaves- 

its woolly skin intact, and baked until it is fit for the 
palates of its uncritical proprietors. 

Uncivilized people, destitute of those utensils in metal 
and clay, which are so familiar to us as to appear common- 
place, are put to strange shifts when they would dine on 
roast meat. The Arab oven of stones is perfectly well 
known to the Hottentots and Caffres of South Africa, to 
the New Zealander, the Typee Cannibal, and the natives 
of Madagascar. But most untamed races resort to a 
sharpened wooden spit, and a broil before a fire ; and the 
savage hunters of Central America simply inclose a Hon- 
duras turkey in soft clay, and bake the mass till it cracks. 

Europe, you may be sure, went through many stages 
before its ordinary progress culminated in French refine- 
ments and cookery. The banquets of our early European 
ancestors are enough to give a modern reader a sharp 
twinge of dyspepsy. The huge ruddy joints, twirling lan- 
guidly before a fierce fire of crackling logs, the platters 
heaped with half-roasted meat, the barbaric plenty and 
coarse sensualism, were worthy of those coarse ages. The 
rude Vikings were too hungry to wait until their great 
masses of beef were roasted to a judicious brownness. 
They snatched the ribs and sirloins from the spit ; they 
hacked the meat with daggers, tore it piecemeal, gnawed 
it savagely, like hounds breaking up their game, and con- 
cluded the festive rej^ast by pelting one another, or some 
butt or prisoner, with their marrowbones and leavings. 
Was not an Archbishop of Canterbury absolutely boned 
to death in this manner by the Pagan Danes, who held 
his grace a captive in his own cathedral .'' 



Russet Leaves. 125 

Since then, how rapidly have we imi^roved, in England, 
Germany, France, and America. France, indeed, sets an 
example for all of us in the art of cooking. The FVench 
women can conjure up a meal that shall be at once frugal 
and good of its kind. And so with French soldiers. A 
stray Zouave or Chasseur will kindle his fire, improvise 
his oven, and dress a dinner under the most wretched 
circumstances — very like tossing omelets out of a helmet, 
and compounding savory stews in a shaving-can. The 
French, indeed, are a nation of epicures, fastidious and 
voluptuous in their eating, though brave and patient as 
Spartans when in the field of battle. Count the dishes 
of the distinguished Careme — what a brain that French- 
man must have had ! — and of his pupil Francatelli, no 
less distinguished, and you may behold the true genius 
which exists in the profession of cooking. 

American cookery is not as far advanced artistically as 
that of France. We have not yet made cookery a branch 
of esthetics, though Professor Blot has given us some 
nice lessons in the art. But we are progressing. At least 
we ought to be ; for I enter no lady friend's house with- 
out finding a cook-book on the library. The turkey seems 
to be the American epicure's dish ; and I had almost 
thought it a bird of this clime alone, till I read my Shak- 
speare closely. When the great poet makes Gower de- 
scribe Pistol as swelling like a turkey-cock, and Fabian 
say of Malvolio, " Contempt makes a rare turkey-cock of 
him — how he jets under his advanced plumes !" we may 
assume that Globe audiences were able to appreciate the 
comparisons. So we learn from the exclamation of the 



126 Russet Leaves. 

carrier — i Henry vi — " Odsbody ! the turkeys in my pan- 
nier are quite starved !" that they formed no uncommon 
part of his load, and were probably as familiar to English 
poultry-yards in the Elizabethan era as to those of our 
own day and country. 

But since the Englishman is so enthusiastic in his 
roast-beef and plum-pudding as to be all but regardless 
of the glorious turkey, we have set down this bird as the 
prime Yankee dish, and especially of the Western States, 
for great festive occasions. The " Christmas turkey " is 
our proverbial expression. This fowl has been, and is, 
cooked in every possible way : stufied with chestnuts, 
filled with forcemeat, crammed with mushrooms and oys- 
ters ; and ham, tongue, bacon, pickled pork, and sausages 
have been called to add zest to his delicate flesh. The 
Provencals impart an oily taste to it by feeding the bird 
on whole walnuts. Soyer would have him fattened by five 
weeks' feeding on a paste of mashed potatoes, buckwheat 
flour, Indian corn, and barley ; while Parmentier says that 
to obtain all possible advantage from the turkey, they 
must be killed at the same time as pigs ; then cut the 
turkey in quarters, and put them in earthen pots covered 
over with the fat of the pork, and by this means they may 
be eaten all the year round. 

The American girls know how to cook the fowl for a 
Christmas dinner ; although there be many skeptics who 
insist that none of the girls of our day — or very few of 
them — know how to cook any thing. There is, too truly, 
a class of young women who think cooking vulgar — the 
more 's the pity! If to render food tender, wholesome, 



Russet Leaves. 127 

easy of digestion, to preserve and develop natural flavors, 
to add aroma to azmozone, to combine the choicest prod- 
ucts of the animal and the vegetable world, be the true 
offices of the cook, we fear our girls — fond as they are of 
picnics, and balls, and flimsy accomplishments — are not 
far advanced in kitchen lore. The genius which is re- 
quired to cook a vegetable, few of them possess. They 
may be able to paint a presentable picture, or make a tol- 
erable statue, or flirt with grace ; but in the kitchen they 
are awkward and careless, and sometimes, I had almost 
said, disgusting. 

My friend Wat Wingate — a Queen City artist of wealth 
and distinction — will never get married, because, as he 
says, he can 't find an intelligent, educated woman who 
understands how to cook a meal. Wat believes, with a 
certain ancient philosopher, that " voluptuousness is the 
sovereign good ;" so he taboos a wife, and hires his cook.s, 
with the idea that a man can not turn ofl" his wife when 
she does not suit him, as he can a salaried cook, — and 
that there will be no taste to please but his own in the 
arrangement of the table. The whole object of life, in my 
friend's view, is eating. Domestic ties are nought in com- 
parison with a "good sc|uare meal." A great, heavy- 
headed, flabby, bloated mountain of flesh, his heart is so 
deeply buried beneath cushions of adipose matter, that it 
can respond to nothing sweeter and more endearing than 
the clangor of the bell announcing the approach of his 
food. Wat does not even walk to his meals. He sits in 
an easy chair, with one gouty, well-wrapped foot on a soft 
pillow, from morning to morning, growling, like a huge 



128 



RussE T Lea ves. 



mastiff, at every thing in life, save when the dinner-bell 
rings. That is his happiest hour. 

His trouble in getting cooks was formerly very fre- 
quent. But he has now in command of his kitchen, and 
has had for two or three years, a Frenchman, whose ar- 
rangement of a dinner gives entire satisfaction. I was 
present when my fat friend employed this artist. Our 
modern Epicurus had advertised in the daily papers for a 
cook. He had had many applications — Irish, German, 
and African — but none were able to answer his test ques- 
tion suitably : " Well, how do you cook a turnip ?" For 
Wat thinks that the cook who knows how to cook a tur- 
nip in an artistic manner needs no further catechism. At 
last a flashily-dressed gentleman, with the finest broad- 
cloth, cut to perfection, covering his graceful form, a per- 
fect neck-tie, boots polished to the glitter of ebony, a thin 
wisp of a cane, jewelry of the loudest description, hair 
oiled to the kinkiest curl, and a voice sweet as a night- 
ingale's, was announced. Wat tliought this must be a 
French count, at the very least — if not a prince of the 
Napoleonic blood — and rang "for his page to hand the 
gentleman a chair. 

" To what am I indebted for the honor of this visit ?" 
asked my old friend, with his most courteous smile, when 
the guest was seated. 

" You advertise for a cook," was the reply, in a sweet 
voice, with a French twang. " I come to see about the 
situation." 

Wat's eyes opened. He contracted his brows, and 
resumed the natural look of Wat Wingate, the epicurean 



J?i/ss£r Leaves. 129 

critic. "Well, sir," said he, recurring to his standard 
question, " how do you cook a turnip ?" 

" There are many ways of cooking turnips, Monsieur. 
Shall I explain ?" 

This was a thoroughly practical answer, and my friend 
looked pleased. 

"One way will be sufficient, for the present," replied 
Wat. " Select which you please." 

" How would you like vol-au-vent ?' 

" I can not tell, till I know your system.'' 

"Take a large, sound turnip," began Frenchy, with 
promptness, " cut it into pieces about the size of a franc- 
piece, put them into a pan, with brains of the star-fish, 
caught when the moon is at full ; be careful to put in a 
proper amount of salt seasoning, and marjoram ; fry on 
one side to a pale brown, turn and stew on the other side 
till it becomes pulp ; take from the pan, and steam the 
whole in a cullender ; then make some forcemeat and egg- 
balls, fry the former, put the whole into a brown gravy ; 
flavor with parsley ; fill the vol-au-vent, and serve imme- 
diately, hot. A little grated lemon-peel and dried thyme 
improves the flavor to some tastes !" 

This sounded splendidly tempting, and Wat's eyes and 
lips moistened, as he inquired: 

" What are your wages ?" 

"My salary," said Frenchy, with dignity, "is three 
thousand per annum, with lodging and clothing." 

" Here, page ; show him into the kitchen !" 

Thus Wat got a cook who ought to be a professor of 
a new department of instruction in a female college. The 

9 



130 Russet Leaves. 

dish spoken of above was on Wat's table that day. I 
partook of tlie same, and must say that turnips can, by a 
superior cook, be wrought into a delectable dish. 

Great would be the advantage to the community if 
cooking were made a branch of education. Cookery is a 
subject that the young ladies of the present day have 
never been taught to regard as worthy of their attention : 
indeed, rather as one to be avoided ; for it is seldom dis- 
cussed otherwise than apologetically, with a simpering sort 
of jocularity, or as something which it is "low" to know 
any thing about. A certain diplomatist, among a com- 
pany of ladies, on being reminded that his mother was a 
cook, did not deny the fact, but assured the company, 
upon his honor, that "she was a very bad one," — ^just as 
if not knowing how to cook well took away the disgrace. 

A good many damsels, educated at our fashionable 
colleges, when they are promoted to wedlock, become 
instantly aware of the appalling fact, that their "early 
education has been neglected," — and, practically, they 
must go to school again, or — awful catastrophe ! — lose the 
love of their husbands. Some ladies go to work in real 
earnest then, and, by application and attention, learn how 
to make home homelike. But O, what a world of trouble, 
harassment, and ill-humor might have been avoided, if, 
with other accomplishments of the boarding-school, they 
had learned to cook ! Some, however, never take pains 
to learn at all ; nor ever visit the kitchen to look into its 
management and economy — they are above all this ! 

If we could only see what is going on at the dinner 
hour of such a lady — what a curious spectacle of waste, 



Russet Leaves. 131 

discomfort, and ill-humor — we would shudder ! The hus- 
band, at last, tired of his Barmecide feasts, takes to the 
nightly club, and makes up in drink for the deficiencies in 
food. Ardent spirits is the final resource of the baulked 
appetite. This is a truth married ladies may do well to 
ponder. No woman can make a home what it ought to 
be, unless she rids herself of that pride which looks upon 
cooking as low, and uses every energy to become an adept 
in the art which makes life pleasurable. Man is an eating 
animal — and the more alluring the food which is placed 
before him, the more contented is he with himself and all 
around him. 

The banquet-table, the festival, the c^uiet lunch at the 
basket-meeting, the meal in the cold, repellant boarding- 
house, the pleasant feast at home, with all its sweet influ- 
ences — how eacii of these impress the character of man, 
and make or mar his happiness ! 

Let our boarding-schools look to this matter. 

Soyer, in England, some years ago, gave an impetus 
to education in cooking which was very refining upon the 
female mind, fast dwindling into mawkish babyhood, in 
the study of boarding-school French and Italian, and the 
neglect of weightier matters. The American female mind 
needs rubbing up in the same way. I hope some Pro- 
fessor Blot may have his influence in the seminaries of 
our country, and that no young lady will be permitted to 
graduate without knowing how to cook a turnip on some 
scientific plan. 

But a iruce to what seems like scolding. There be 
plenty of women — for all that I have said — who are not 



132 Russet Leap'es. 

too proud to place the art of cooking among their other 
accomphshments. 

Neibelungen's skill I know from long experience. I 
have enjoyed the results of her superior culinary educa- 
tion for years, from a caper-sauce to a codfish-ball, and 
assure you, on my word as an eater, that she is equal to 
the most luxurious and the most delicate repast — that she 
can place on the table in perfection whatever the appetite 
may crave. 

Blessed — O, blessed indeed ! — is the man whose other 
half's education grasps every range of that sublime art 
which so mastered the minds of the voluptuous Greeks, 
as to induce their poets to devote epics to its praises, and 
their statesmen to spend hours in enthusiastic woi:ship at 
its shrine ! 

And blessed — supremely blessed — is the artist wife, 
whose husband's system, free from dyspepsy and spleen, 
can appreciate the production of her genius, whether it be 
the Christmas turkey-gobbler, luscious in its oyster stuff- 
ing, with aroma of sage, or that richest delicacy of the 
Summer solstice, the green pea .' 






Jii/ssET Leaves. 



133 



XXVIII. 



^ |}ream-$ong. 




HE lady sings,— and O, I bear 
In her delicious voice, 
A thousand things that make my heart 
Both sorrow and rejoice : 
The grasshopper, that leaps aloft, 
Clapping his wings, and singeth soft 
A glad refrain of hope and bliss,— 
O, happy song of love and bUss !— 
Is in her ringing voice. 

She sings ! Within the bosky wood,— 

Dim, far, and desolate,— 
The red-bird chirrups mournfully 

For her benighted mate. 
He comes not— though the sun is set, 
And her soft wings with dew are wet. 
Sighing, she sits on yon high tree, 
Sighing, and chirruping mournfully 

For him, who lies in state, — 



134 Russet Leaves. 

Who lies in state in the tufted grass, 
The twihght Silences shrouding him, 

And the brotherly stars coming up to his bier. 
From tlieir mountain palaces dim, — 

Coming in shadow, coming in gloom — 

With dewy tears, with light perfume 

Of roses in the drifted grass ; 

But bringing to her no hope, alas ! 
Who sighs in vain for him. 

The lady sings ! Beside the lake 

Which lies athwart the green. 
With jeweled eyes and gaudy coat, 

A Puck-like frog is seen. 
O, list to him! From his pouched throat 
Bursts forth a loud, mellifluous note — 
A liquid note, heavy and loud — 
A prayer for yon uprising cloud 

To sprinkle the thirsty green ! — 

To fall in rain — fall in rain — 

And, like the lady's rhyme. 
To rattle along the thirsty plain — 

The merriest bells in chime ; 
To patter in music among the leaves ; 
To rollick in music upon the eaves ; 
To roar across the eternal sea 
Its organ thunder of melody. 

Rich as the lady's rhyme ! 



Russet Leaves. i3S 

Sing, lady mine !— See, in tlie East, 

In bridal beauty, wakes 
The loving Morn, and, kissing her lord, 

The sleeping Earth, he wakes ! 
He wakes : from out its tented nook 
The busy emmet comes to look 
For the red-bird that has ceased to sing, 
Who lies in state with folded wing ; 

And no song the silence breaks ! 

No happy song the silence shakes ! 
But, in the dusky wood, 

A monster grim, and stark, and cold, 
Stalks giant Solitude :— 

He stalks, the unrivaled monarch there. 

And, in the winding, wreathing air. 

Horridly chuckles to hear no sound 

In all the desolate gloom around- 
Remorseless Solitude ! 

Thy voice is mute, O, lady mine ! 

Thy thrilling lips are mute ; 
But their tones still linger on my ear. 

Like the hngering sighs of a lute ; 
The grasshopper still is hanging in air ; 
And the frog comes from his watery lau", 
To wind his horn in the twilight breeze ; 
But thy voice, with the bird's that sang in the trees, 

Is forever still and mute- 
Forever still and mute ! 



136 Russet Leaves. 



XXIX. 



The Mwing World* 




HE world is moving, moving, ever moving ! 
Going around steadily, as at Creation, 
When Adam wept, and palely left the Garden, — 
And Eve disconsolate followed her bosom's lord, 
Looking back at the sweet fruits, the rare-ripe berries, 
The golden apples flaring in the twilight — 
And the sweet scents that perfumed all the landscape : — 
But overall the hovering cloud, black in its dismal augury! 

The world is turning, turning, ever turning ! — 
Turning in light and shade, with tireless motion. 
As once it turned when Cain, the jealous brother. 
Did the black deed that blackened man forever ! 
The world turns round, and man, in painful agony, 
Stretches his hands to heaven in mighty prayer, 
For the removal of that curse hereditary. 
Stamped on his brow when earth was young ! 
But ah ! in vain ! Not yet — O God — not yet 
Is the deep vengeance of thine awful ire 
Administered to the full ! 



Russet Leaves. i37 

The world is whirling on its axis ever! 

And as it changes not, save in its seasons— 

The Spring-like energy, the Summer's heat, 

The Autumn's generous fruitfulness, 

The Winter's stern relapse to death — 

So man unchanging lives and dies, save in his change 

From love to hate, from hate to love— 

From vice to virtue, and from joy to sorrow ! 

The world is whirling, moving, turning, ever !— 
Whirling amid the planets, moving in royal state 
Around its fiery center,— and Life and Death, 
Disease, Despair, Madness, Self-Murder, every horror 
That shakes the soul, as hurricanes shake the forests. 
Is whirling with it— whirling through all the nations ! 

Turn round, strange World !— whirl on, O awful Planet ! 
Bring us the day— alas ! why does it linger ?— 
Whe'ii Love shall love not vainly— when the shroud 
Which wraps us round shall change to orange-blossoms ! 
Bring us the time, fleet-turning, restless Planet, 
When Love shall cease to change, but, as in Eden, 
Shall weave a web of Beauty through the quiet 
Of all the moving years— and Crime and Death 
Shall flit, as flits the weary hour that 's passing 
Never to come again ! 



'38 



Russet Leaves. 



The eourd. 



, „ITY READER,— Did you ever visit the country 

■y^ on a hot Summer day, and dip the cool, cool water 
osM^^ from a greenish, mossy bucket, with a gourd ? 

Sav nothing to me about your made-up city drinks at 
city saloons, or even of boreal soda, from the city fount- 
ains. If you have never raised an old, half- rotted bucket, 
either by windlass or "derrick-pole," out of a slippy- 
sloppy, emerald-walled well, and thrust a gourd into it for 
a drink, you have never known the highest enjoyment of a 
thirsty voluptuary. 

In the course of my "brief but checkered life," I have 
tried all kinds of drinks, and, like Sir Charles Coldstream, 
have found them generally to pall upon the senses. After 
drinking the most elaborate beverages that the genius of 
man can arrange, — and out of every variety of goblet, cup, 
and beaker, — I have at last sought that with which I first 
began life ; and have found the simplest form of drinking- 
vessel, and the least adulterated beverage, the best. 

A careless, unthinking man — a man who is always in 
a hurry — a man of little esthetic principle, miglit ask. 



i^ i/ssE r Lea ves. 1 39 

••' What concerns the vessel which you use in drinking, 
if your thirst be satisfied ?" But it seems to me— may be 
it is a mere whim— that the difference is a quite important 

one. 

Let us glance, cursorily, at a few drinking-vessels. 

Away from home, traveling footsore and thirsty in a 
wilderness, or hunting in the great forests for game, the 
drinking-cup must be of the simplest kind. On such oc- 
casions I have usually taken a large leaf from a bush- 
pawpaw, for example— twisted it into a cup, and drank 
from its dainty convolution — a gracious potation ! It takes 
some time to satisfy the thirst this way, as the cup is nec- 
essarily imperfect ; but still my memory of pawpaw drink- 
ing-vessels is very, very comforting. 

Then, sometimes I have used the hollow of my hand at 
a forest brook— an unsatisfactory method. At other times 
I have Iain down flat upon the bosom of the earth, and 
imbibed the water, liorse-fashion, with my lips. 1 gener- 
ally got all the water I desired by this plan ; for a cool- 
flowing brook furnishes the fluid as rapidly as one can 
take it in. But I am always afraid of swallowing some- 
thing besides water when I drink in this manner. The 
newspaper legends of men who have swallowed small 
snakes, and tadpoles, and centipedes, which have after- 
ward become horrible monsters in their stomachs, doing 
them to death, affright my imagination ; and a horizontal 
quenching of the thirst is sought with reluctance. 

These are modes of drinking, however, which belong 
to rude conditions of life— among hunters and lost travel- 
ers — and are not affected by the civilized drinker. 



140 Russet Leaves. 

But at all times and in all seasons I can recommend 
the gourd above every thing as a drinking-utensil. Yes, 
even at parties in the gay city, — for I attended a social 
gathering, at one time, where gourds were used, and 
though the uniqueness of the cup caused some comment, 
none were offended. These primitive vessels, on the oc- 
casion mentioned, were chased and mounted with silver. 

I used to like those iron tankards suspended by a 
strong chain from the pumps in Western villages, — we 
have them at Tusculum, — and which fall with a tintinnab- 
ulary music against the side of the pump when you release 
them after quenching your thirst. While lifting this vessel 
to your lips, you may see the shining metal through the 
transparent fluid, and it has a cooling, oozy, wet sort of 
effect upon the system of the drinker. 

Tin-cups I never did like, nor pewter mugs. If asked 
to give a reason, I hardly think I could give much more 
than a feminine one : I do n't like them, because — I 
do n't like them ! There is a repulsive opacity about 
them — they are prosily dull and dingily obscure — they will 
not reflect the crystallineness of pure water, nor warn you 
of any stray thousand-leg-bug which may be lurking 
within — they conceal the quality of the fluid you are 
drinking: it may be as muddy as the Missouri or as diaph- 
anous as a mountain lake, without your knowledge ; and 
an essential attribute in a drinking-cup is, honesty and 
openness, a frank revealment of its liquid contents. 

The waters of our own romantic Ohio I always drink 
from a tumbler, or glass vessel. I am fond of holding it 
up to the light, and viewing it in its different moods, — 



Russet Leaves. 143 

sometimes yellow, like gold; sometimes white, like glis- 
tening silver; and sometimes with a sufficient shade of 
green to show that it has been loitering amid the grass 
and leaves of a bucolic locality. 

" Full various, that the mind of desultory man. 
Studious of change, and pleased with novelty, 
May be indulged." 

The gold and silver tinges remind me of " La Belle Riv- 
iere's " practical side, — turning wheels for mills, carrying 
froni port to port the wealth of great towns and cities, 
floating huge crafts in commercial enterprises. The emer- 
ald shade carries my imagination into pleasant meadows 
and shady woodlands, to the generous parks and quiet 
homesteads of the wealthy rustic. And thus the glass 
vessel becomes a mirror of many phases of lite. 

The gourd, however, is my chosen drinking-cup. I 
like it on account of its dear, old-fashioned simplicity. 
I like it, may be, most of all, because it is a memento of 
the past. Long, long years ago, when I was an infant, 
my venerable grandfather and grandmother drank from 
the gourd, beside an old well, on the banks of the beau- 
tiful Buckskin, when that spot was a wilderness. The 
memory of the gourd which touched my infant lips has 
hallowed that cup, to my mind. 

I like it, too, because I used to drink from a gourd, as 
a spruce lad, when I visited my little country cousin — 
dear lassie, where and what is she now 1 We both drank 
from the same gourd — such are the homely ways of kin- 
ship in youth. 



144 



/^ussET Lea ves. 



But I like the gourd for itself — the most permanent 
liking, after all. I think that the patriarchs and prophets 
of old must have drank from gourds. When Rebekah 
went to the well, and met there the servant of the man 
who became her " fate," he was, we may suppose, soothing 
his weary spirit by drinking from a gourd. Why not ? 
The Scripture story tells us that he asked Rebekah to 
permit him to drink from her pitcher. This was a ruse 
to make her acquaintance. He had already quenched his 
thirst — no doubt — at the well ; but the beautiful daughter 
of Bethuel was glad to overlook this, and to permit him 
to drink from the vessel which she carried. Bright girls, 
tripping along with pitchers to old wells, and gourds, are 
powerful incentives to love. 

The literal critic will perhaps tell me that there were 
no gourds at the wells in those days. Yet Scripture his- 
tory speaks commendably of the gourd. To Jonah it was 
made tiie type of all that is refreshing to the spirit — a 
shadow to cool him in the Summer heats. 

And who shall assert that the Jews, a people full of 
poetical invention, did not first of all place beside their 
public wells this tiiirst-delivering implement, to cool the 
parched throat of the passing pilgrim ? 

In ancient Egypt the shadoof, that simple lever of 
timber moving on a pivot, loaded at one end with stones 
or a lump of clay, and with a bucket at the other, was as 
common as it is now in the Western States of America ; 
and I like to imagine the joy of the traveler, or hunter, 
or thirsty laborer, as he drew the dripping bucket, and 
dashed the gourd into it — the gourd which always hung 



Russet Leaves. 



145 



near by, hospitably inviting tlie passenger to come, and 
taste, and be renewed. 

I like to imagine the dark-haired, wine-eyed Rebekahs 
of that far, far age, dressed in their scant but graceful 
drapery, going to the wells with earthen pitchers, and 
dallying with the tempting gourd ere they returned home- 
ward with the ice-cold liquid — perhaps to be reproved for 
their happy loitering. 

The very word gourd calls up to the mind the most 
romantic images. When I pick up a gourd, fill it with 
God's own beverage, and peer into its misty, mystic 
depths, shadows of the past, visions of ages gone, dreams 
of antique ruins of springs and old wells — like the scenes 
in the astrologer's magic mirror — flit across the water I 
am about to drink. And so I dream, and dream, till thirst 
warns me to empty the vessel, and the sweet reality of the 
Present is before me. 

Other vessels do not act thus upon my mind ; and so 
I have catalogued the gourd at the head of the poet's 
drinking utensils for its soothing memories. 

10 



146 Russet Leaves. 



XXXI. 



J>ou^- Songs, 



EET me, love, when Night is flowing in the 
^c^y:^ trembling sea above ; 

->^^l.1 Meet me, love, when Cynthia, glowing, animates 

the scenes we love ; 
And the rosy star of evening, seeming like a sunny isle 
In that sea of glory beaming, wakes glad Nature to a smile. 

Meet me, love, when dews are falling on the fainting, 

thirsty flower, 
When the wip-po-wil is calling to his sad mate in the 

bower ! 
Smiling Loves shall linger round us, earth transforming 

to the skies — 
Sorrow strive in vain to wound us in the leafy Paradise. 



Russet Leaves. 



H7 



O, what Joy, on seraph pinions, bears the soul to worlds 

above. 
When our hearts, responsive swelling, beat to harmonies 

of love ! 
Could we drink such bliss forever in the leafy woodland 

grot. 
Angel bands might gladly leave their happy spheres to 

wed our lot ! 




II, 



'T IS night, and in the quiet sky 
There glows a single star, 

On which I gaze, with tearful eye, 
As from the blue afar. 



148 Russet Leaves. 

It sends a melancholy light — 

A memory of thee — 
Of joys that long have ta'en their flight, 

And left a sting with me. 



As thus it burns, that genial star. 

In every ray I trace 
A lineament of fadeless love 

On calm Creation's face. 
O, canst thou view it, this soft hour 

Of silent memory. 
Nor breathe one fleeting sigh for him 

Who thinks of nought but thee ? 



Does not yon far and failing star, 

This holiest of eves, 
Remind thee of the plighted vow 

Beneath the locust leaves ? 
O, canst thou view its placid beam. 

And feel no secret pain. 
No tender longing in thy breast 

For those sweet hours again ? 



Ah ! no ; as that pellucid light 

Is hidden from my eyes 
By some bleak cloud, that throws its gloom 

Across the shining skies, 



R ussE T Lea ves. i 49 

Thy love is shrouded from my soul, 

And fled its light divine, 
While wastes in darkness, all alone, 

This vi^ithered heart of mine. 



How sweetly glows the red, red rose 

Upon the mountain's peak ! 
But O, more sweet its beauty glows 
Upon thy cheek. 

How brightly shine the stars of night 

Upon the Summer sky ! 
But brighter beams the light of love 
From thy clear eye. 

The singing-birds that on the sprays 

Of amorous Spring rejoice, 
Do not so thrill the human breast 
As thy sweet voice ! 

Those eyes, those eyes of melting blue ! 

They steal the soul away, 
And leave to lovers but a mass 
Of trembling clay. 



150 Russet Leaves. 

Those lips, that seem the rosy gates 

Of pearly Paradise, 
To kiss were easiest way to steal 
Into the skies. 

O, ruddy stars, forsake your realms ! 

Rose, leave the mountain side ! 
Birds, cease your songs upon the sprays ! 
Ye are outvied ! 



IV. 

O, MoLLy dear, when I, in silent clay. 

Shall sleep the sleep that never knows awaking, 
Wilt thou, the harsh and icy world forsaking, 

Come to my tomb, and weep those eyes away ? 

Or scatter flowers, or plant some fragrant tree 
Above thy lover's breast ? Or wilt forget 

That he, wliose heart was ever turned to thee, 

Is sleeping placidly, from life set free, 

Nor breathe the faintest murmur of regret ? 
Ah ! how uncertain those glad eyes appear ! 

If I should 'scape the world, my wandering fair, 

Those lips a smile for happier souls would wear. 
And my lone turf would never feel a tear 
In all its weedy solitude, from year to year! 



Russet Leaves. 151 

V. 

Lady, thou 'rt very beautiful : thine eyes 
Are Cupid's piercing daggers, and thy voice 
Maketh my bosom, as a wave, rejoice : 

O, it doth heave, in secret love, with sighs ! 
I scan thy features, and my spirits fly 
In frenzied bliss unto the cloudless sky. 

Thy cheeks might tempt the butterfly depart 
The nectar'd rose-bud, which at morn it sips 
In soft luxuriance ; and thy ruby lips 

Could, with one curl, subdue the miser's heart. 

O, fairest angel, — thou to whom the rose 
Bows its inferior head, and from the wind, 
Near thy rich breath, withholds its odors kind, 

Hast NO defect .'' Ay — one : Thou hast no Nose ! 



VI. 

MiRA, last night I dreamed thou wert a flower, 
A vernant mead perfuming — I a dew. 

Dropped from a sparkling star, amid a shower 
Of brother pearls that near Elysium grew. 

Fell gently on thy cheek — there I inspired 
The deep and joyful fragrance of thy form, 



152 



Russet Leaves. 



Till Phoebus strutted up the East, and fired 

The earth with all his splendor deep and warm, 
And rudely kissed thy cheek of vermeil bloom, 
Then, Phoenix-like, I faded in perfume ! 




R USSR T Lea ves. 153 



XXXII. 



Th^ m'mA. 



I. 



i-^fiSJl 



HE Wind is a Reveler. 
He frequently becomes weary of his life amid 
^^S^ 'P the solitary mountain pines, 

And comes down into the valleys among the haunts of 

men, with a magnificent flourish of trumpets. 
Inspired by the music that accompanies him on his march, 
He begins to caper and dance about with every thing in 

his path. 
He seizes the twigs and leaves upon the road, and whirls 

away madly with them in a fantastic waltz, 
And in the spiral cloud of dust he may be seen capering 

with his unique companions. 

Tiring of these, he plunges into the woods, and, clasping 
the huge elms and oaks about the waist. 

They sway gracefully with him upon their green forest 
carjDCts. 



154 •/? c/ssE T Lea ves. 

Then he catches the little maiden saplings by the hands, 
And right merrily they swing off through the far green 

aisles of the wildwood, 
Light and lithe as the gay partner they have selected. 

See ! the wild-flowers raise their heads as he passes on 

his musical, jocund way ! 
The johnny-jump-up jumps up, and the sweet-william 

exhales a sweeter odor ; 
The blue eyes of the violet glisten in sweeter hues ; 
The honey-suckle attempts to unclasp its arms from the 

tall hickory to which it has clung for years ; 
The lily looks up with almost a blush ; 
Even the modest, quiet daisy lifts its pious head — a sym- 
bol of lovely amiability ; 
And all ask the hght-hearted, daring Wind to join them 

in a dance in the forest. 
He consents, and away they all go together : 
The birds in the murmuring tree-tops whistle the music, 
The brooks join in with their silver cymbals, and the 

solitude is alive with happiness. 
The very sunshine has caught the general hilarity. 
Over the bright green grass, and in and out of the 

shadows, 
It sports in a thousand grotesque shapes, snapping its 

golden fingers, 
And seeming to be almost delirious with fun. 

And thus the Wind, as a Reveler, 
Pursues its joyous way. 



Russet Lea ves. 155 

II. 

The Wind is a Desolator. 
Changeful as he is in his moods, he soon grows weary 
Coquetting with the beautiful forms that are ever in his 
presence. 

Arising, like some infatuated madman, from his repose 

after a revel. 
The cloud upon his brow, the shaking thunder in his 

voice, the lightning in his eye. 
He marches, like a demon, over mountain and plain. 
The trembhng forest lifts up its hand imploringly as he 

thunders down upon it. 
He heeds not the suppliant; but, seizing it by the hair, 

he tears it from the earth, and hurls it to the skies. 

He seeks the secluded hamlet, the country seat, the big 

city, 
And laughs in demoniac triumph as he hurries away from 

their ruins. 
Out upon the sea he goes, tossing the surges in frantic 

splendor, 
And shaking the grand old Ocean till he frets and heaves 

his huge chest gigantically. 

The sailors see this monster Wind coming from afar, and 
reef the sails, and make every thing snug and taut 
for him ; 



156 Russet Leaves. 

For they know that he hates the sight of white canvas 

and a rickety ship. 
He speeds toward the vessel ; but, seeing every thing in 

its place, turns reveler for a time, 
And dances gallantly with the trim craft in its ocean home. 
Then away again, howlingly — 
As if repentant of his short respite from destruction, 

away he speeds landward. 
The poor owner of the solitary hut in the mountans, 

returning from labor, 
Beholds his home shattered to earth before his eyes, and 

his family buried beneath the ruins, — 
All lost in a single night, home, kindred and earthly 

happiness, — 
And the reckless Desolator goes laughing and shouting 

upon his way. 

Thus, over river, and lake, and ocean, 
Over mountain, hill, and valley, he marches relentlessly, 
And tears and death, desolation and gloom, are in his 
pathway. 



The Wind is a Comforter. 

Having thrown himself wearily upon the soft bosom of 
some voluptuous plain when his terrible hour of 
wrath has passed away. 

He awakes, after a sweet sleep, and, breathing the fra- 
grance that encompasses him every-where, 



/HussET Leaves. 157 

He is happy, and a quiet sympathy fills his nature, — 
He steps from his couch, and goes out into the beautiful 
world, "stealing and giving odor."' 

Yon tender daisy in the solitary plain, under a stunted 

shrub. 
Is drooping for companionship and for the cooling shadow 

of the wild wood. 
The Wind sees it, and approaching, he kindly lifts up its 

weary head, whispers to it soothingly, kisses its 

cheeks, 
And goes away, leaving a blush of joy upon its face. 

An old pilgrim, with his bundle and stick, oppressed by 
the heat of the day, has seated himself upon the 
grass beneath yon tree. 

See how he mops his sweaty forehead with his hand- 
kerchief. 

And swells out his shining cheeks with blowing ! 

The comforting Wind sees him, and runs up pleasantly 
to the parched traveler : 

He fans back the hair from his brow, breathes in cooling 
puflfs upon his lips. 

And thrills him through and through with delicious peace. 

The sick man, lying with a fever in his chamber, gasjjs 

suffocatingly for air. 
His attendants assuage the fever but temporarily with 

their fans. 



158 Russet Leaves. 

Presently along comes that blessed Comforter, the Wind. 
He bears in his hands the balm of a thousand flowers, 
And leaping lightly into the sick man's room, he flings 

the odors every-where. 
He flies to the invalid's bed, plays flatteringly with his 

hair, smooths down his cheek, 
Pours upon his heated lips a draught of some cool essence 

caught from the mountain brook, 
And makes the apartment, before so oppressive, as breezy 

as the mountain grove. 

And thus the sympathetic Wind travels forth on his errand 
of mercy. 

He is no respecter of persons or localities. 

He seeks the lowest huts among the mines and the fish- 
eries by the sea-shore, 

As well as the gaudy palaces of the vain and proud, 

Whispering to each and all his delightful mission of 
cheerfulness and love. 




Tic/SSET Leaves. 



159 



XXXIII. 



Bcioher Uevevies, 





ACK FROST has already become 
so delicate with his cold fingers 
as to paint his curious images on 
the window-panes, and each night he lays 
rude devices over the fields, and hangs 
his fleecy mantle on fence and roof. The 
^ leaves on the trees have been bitten by 
iim, and those that are not falling upon the 
t;iound, are trembling into all the hues of the 
iris, or aie dying changefully, like the fabled 
dolphin. The death of Nature ! What a 
sublime spectacle it is to him who loves Na- 
ture — what a solemn object of contemplation ! And yet 
it does not seem so much like death, neither, to look at 
it rightly. When an animal dies, he dissolves, through 
corruptibility, into original elements. He becomes part 
and parcel of the irresponsible, inactive universe. When 
a vegetable really dies, it not only puts aside the rich 
robes with which it has been clothed, but gradually decays, 



i6o Russet Leaves. 

trunk, root, and branch, and settles back to light dust. 
But in Autumn, when you see the green woods, the 
shrubs, and bushes losing their garniture, and becoming 
black skeletons, you must not think they are dying. They 
are only folding themselves for the Winter — retiring, like 
the cold-blooded reptiles, into torpidity. In Spring they 
will burst again into life and beauty, rejoicing at their 
escape from the fatal blows of tlie North-king. 

The poets, however, like to speak of the annual change 
which takes place in Nature as a death. It affords fine 
scope for the imagination. If they were not permitted to 
look upon all the works of the Almighty with the eye 
of fancy, and give body and shape to unsubstantial vis- 
ions, they would have no occupation. I do not know but 
that I have myself some of that lightness of head and 
heaviness of heart which is deemed the especial charac- 
teristic of the poet — that Harold Skimpole lassitude of 
disposition which loves luxury and hates work. So, while 
the long lines of migratory birds are clattering southward, 
overhead, this frosty, bracing weather, I like to creep into 
my snug library, beside a beech-wood fire, defy the cold, 
smoke my rustic pipe in the pleasant warmth, and fall 
a-dreaming. 

Ah me ! what feelings come unbidden in dreams — 
day-dreams in particular ! The mind goes back into its 
chamber, then, erects its canvas there, and sketches the 
pictures of the Past — those are full of regrets ; of the 
Present — these are of a mingled dye ; of the Future — 
those glow with all the colors of the rainbow ! Is it not 
strange that Fancy can take no tinge from Experience ? 



R ussE T Lea ves. i 63 

Though the poet's past has been a continuous storm, 
with scarcely a gleam of sunshine, when he begins to 
picture the P'uture, it glows in all the radiant colors of 
love. Like the unfortunate and contented Micawber, he 
is always looking, when he dreams, for "something to 
turn up." But when he awakes, and gathers his wits 
about him, he is the saddest-hearted fellow in the world. 
But, then, perhaps, the inspiration that comes over him at 
times, and kindles his fancies into verse, repays him for 
his sadness. 

Have you not read of Shakspearc's "eye in a fine 
frenzy rolling ?'' The immortal bard no doul)t, in that 
passage, indicates his own experience. Have you not 
read of Robert Burns walking the beach of his favorite 
stream, and clapping his hands with joy whenever a favor- 
ite. thought became embodied in words ? These moments 
were the purple curtains that dropped between him and 
the world, hidnig from his eyes the creditors and duns 
that harried him to death. I have an idea that all poets 
have such moments. Chatterton, "the marvelous boy," 
whose brief life was a wail of agony, and who finally per- 
ished a suicide, had thousands of such hours flashing into 
the blackness of his existence, only to leave him more 
desolate when the brightness was gone. 

You need not tell me that any one can be a poet, and 
remain ignorant of the fact. Those weird and charmed 
hours that visit the poet, and surround him with an atmo- 
sphere of rapture, remind him that he is not as other 
men. They point out to him his course of life. They 
are prophetic periods which tell him that he shall not 



164 



Russet Leaves. 



succeed in life, unless he thrusts the enchantress from 
him, sternly and relentlessly. 

Now, you may say that you have heard of poets who 
got along very well in the world — died rich — and left a 
good little fortune for their loving relations to quarrel 
over. Name them. There 's Rogers, eh ? And Fitz 
Greene Halleck. Granted : I will allow you there are 
exceptions, even to this rule. But Fitz seldom troubled 
the Muses. He perceived that business and poetry are 
incompatible, and drove the "Nine" from his doors. As 
for Rogers, read him carefully, and you will find that his 
verses indicate very hard work rather than inspiration. 
Some one writing to a friend of Foster, the essayist, asked 
how that author was getting along. "In the old way," 
was the answer ; " he is writing a line a day." Such was 
the manner of Rogers. He could not have been an in- 
spired poet. Inspiration is accompanied by spontaneity, 
and not by severe labor. The bard may polish the crude 
gem after he has found it, giving it more beauty to the 
educated eye ; but the gem, after all, is revealed only by 
some sudden <rleam of divine lijrht. 



A frosty morning — in October ! 

I look at my window, and see the wonderful work 
which Jack Frost has penciled thereon gradually disap- 
pearing as the sun rises toward the meridian. The long- 
limbed giants, Thundermug and Blunderbore, who straddle 
across huge rivers and over the tree-tops with burdens of 
sheep and oxen slung in their girdles, are fading ghostlike 
into the thin atmosphere, with the forests, the ruins, and 



Russet Leaves. 165 

rivers ; and the bridges which span the h\tter are giving 
place to the beautiful Bridge, away in the distance, span- 
ning the Ohio, faintly outlined through my window. I 
often see that Bridge from my attic-room, hanging like a 
structure of gossamer against the blue sunset sky, sep- 
arated from me by woods and valleys and the humble 
roofs of the village of Tusculum, where Neibelungen does 
her " shopping ;" and the sight of it, and the few thoughts 
which I have written on "poets and wealth," awaken 
memories that 1 would not willingly repress. 

A friend of mine about twenty-five years ago, wrote a 
short poem for the press which he called " The Vision." 
The vision was not one which a poet usually sees — an air- 
castle in the clouds — but a happy augury of " what was 
to be." Yon bridge which spans the Ohio River, making 
Siamese Twins of two great States, was depicted in that 
vision. Many things were prophesied of a similarly won- 
derful character : some of these have come to pass, others 
still remain for the future to unfold. 

As I stood on the Bridge, the other day, and looked 
around me, I thought of my friend's poem. On every 
side, standing as sentinels to protect the Queen City from 
the blasts of Winter and the miasms of the dog-days, 
were the hills. When my friend wrote his poem, those 
hills were covered with groves and thick woods, where 
the boys went nutting, and the lads and lasses from the 
schools picnicked in the May-days. Now towns, and 
villages, and elegant suburban villas adorn their sides and 
crown their summits. The thick woods have vanished, 
like a thick smoke ; the thunder of machinery is heard 



i66 



R ussE T Lea ves. 



where the boys went nutting; pleasant lawns, handsome 
parterres, artificial groves, now dot a landscape which, not 
many years ago, was the haunt of wild birds and the 
squirrel. Even the quiet hills and brooks in the vicinity 
of Tusculum are changed. Strong bridges span the once 
dashing, romantic streams, and the iron steed has driven 
away the birds and the poetry ! But, alas I change is not 
alone here ! 




.^_-=- -^2^ ,^'m:''. 



My poet friend has passed away. He has not lived to 
see the fulfillment of his poetic dream. His life was a 



7^ USSR T Leaves. 167 

fortunate one ; but his death was terrible and unexpected. 
He was blown from the steamer " Redstone," some few 
years ago, while on the gangway plank, leaving the boat 
just as that terrible accident occurred. No trace of him 
has since been discovered. 

While standing on the Bridge, looking upon the wild 
whirl of waters beneath, the steamboats puffing and whiz- 
zing upon the landing, and all the signs of commercial 
prosperity on every hand, the face and form of my dead 
friend came up before me, as they come before me now. 

He, though a poet, was not a dreamer. His inspira- 
tion was much like that of the ancient seers, whose eyes 
looked far into the future, and saw the coming greatness 
of man. The " Bridges " which he built in his mind were 
not made of the transitory frost, but were substantial as 
that which now spans the Ohio, a thoroughfare for might- 
iest commerce. 

He was not, nor could he be, a great poet ; because 
his life was one of activity in other and more practical 
pursuits. He "built the lofty rhyme," at intervals; but 
he also assisted to build, with a skilled hand, structures 
of a more solid character in town and country. Poetry 
never puts bread and butter into a young man's mouth, — 
and he knew it. He was not, like Chatterton and David 
Gray, so foolish as to think that the end of all life is 
poesy ; and to scorn and curse the world because it 
would not rescue him from obscurity and poverty. With 
firm hand and sound brain, he worked his way among his 
fellow-men, and left behind him — if not a name — a goodly 
quantity of bankable funds. 



1 68 Russet Leaves. 

It is a fact that Fortune never comes in double guise 
to a man. If she brings him fame as an author, she 
leaves him in jjoverty ; if she brings him wealth, she 
takes away his capacity for acquiring literary reputation. 

The man who would be wealthy must not be a dreamer 
in any sense of the word. " Tlie world is all before him 
where to choose ;" and if he does not choose aright, 
Want will ever haunt him, with its attendant spirits, sick- 
ness of heart, darkness, and despair. 

Look down through the past, and what shall you see ? 
From "the blind old bard of Scio's rocky isle'' to the 
blind old bard of England — all those who have won liter- 
ary renown, have lived in want, and sometimes famine. 
I need not mention instances. The reader of history is 
acquainted with them all. There may be exceptions to 
the cases of poverty in literary men ; but exceptions form 
no rule. The instances of poverty and neglect are so 
numerous that a huge and hideous monument reaching to 
the clouds might be built of them. 

My poet friend, who prophesied, in his admirable 
poem, the erection of this great Bridge, and the thick 
population of all these hills that surround it, did not be- 
long to the class of literary starvelings. And wliy ? Be- 
cause he had read the history of ages gone by. The 
world, from time almost immemorial, came before him, in 
judgment ; and he deeply, keenly judged. He saw that 
genius — while it breathed the breath of life — was treated 
with contempt. And a life of contumely and shame was 
not to him desirable. He buried the harp he had strung 
in youth as he grew older ; and made use of the lione 



Russet Leaves. 169 

and sinew which God gave him, that lie might hve hap- 
pily. For what is posthumous fame to him who has 
starved in a debtor's prison ? 

Supposing, as the imaginative Perkins believed, that 
the spirits of the dead are ever hovering round us : Can 
it give the hovering spirit any satisfaction to know that 
mankind is embalming its every earthly act in immortal 
history ? Must not that spirit, disrobed of its mortal 
envies, jealousies, hopes, fears, aspirations for praise, look 
down with spiritual contempt upon the inconsistent, short- 
sighted beings who spurned it while in the flesh, and who 
now worship it in the spirit ? 

My friend felt this. He knew that living for his dear- 
est friends, for his kindred, for his family, for himself, was 
a nobler employment than striving to please a race of 
beings who turn their backs on genius when it needs 
their encouragement the most, and lay their honors upon 
an empty shrine that can not feel the glory of the gift. 

Thus he was a poet — a seer — a propliet, such as a poet 
should be — who kept his inspiration to himself — buried it 
in the inmost recesses of his soul, and lived a happy man. 

If all poets were like him, we should miss much that 
is musical ; but the world would be a more pleasant place 
for the human family. If all practical men were like him, 
there would be less of misery and crime ; for I feel con- 
vinced that the man, naturally poetical, who tames down 
the inspiration within him, and devotes his energies to 
practical ends, must needs sow some seeds of reform in 
the hearts of men that will ultimately bring forth goodly 
fruit. 



I/O 



Russet Leaves. 



That Bridge, then, bringing to memory as it does, my 
old-time friend and his poetical auguries which had so 
much of the practical in them — speaking, as it does, of 
the indomitable faith and energy of man — whispers also 
of the strife, the "fever and the fret," that burns in the 
human heart. I would fain turn from the theme to my 
humble attic-room, its library of few but choice authors, 
my pipe, and my dreams. 

But even on the shadowy side there is food for reflec- 
tion. My friend Asmodeus remarked to me, as we crossed 
the Bridge on its opening day, " What a splendid place 
for committing suicide! One leap, and all were over!" 
Could Asmodeus have seen into the future ? But a few 
weeks passed, and lo ! an unfortunate wretch, tired of life, 
and mad with delirium, leaped from the Bridge in search 
of a watery grave — but found it not. He was saved by 
some mistakenly humane individuals, who rowed from the 
shore in skiffs. 

There is somewhat of a melancholy tinge in the atmo- 
sphere about the Bridge, which seems not to exist other- 
where. Especially is the melancholy character of the 
circumambient air to be felt near the Bridge's center. 
One looks down — far down — to the turbid water, and is 
filled with an indescribable longing to mount the guard- 
way of the Bridge, and plunge into the muddy wave. 
There w^ould be fame in the act, too ; for while the Bridge 
lasts, the names of its suicides will be a portion of its 
history. 

You look from the Bridge toward the banks on either 
side. The busy sounds of life on the shore can not reach 



Russet Leaves. 171 

you. The moving multitudes appear as dim specks — with 
no higher aims in view than so many emmets. Who can 
behevc that there is power to conquer the wide world, and 
master the secrets of the universe, in that crowd of little 
animals ? Ambition, wealth, knowledge, life itself— all 
seem " trifles light as air," mere dreams— and the pulsing 
heart of humanity beats dim and distant. 

Vehicles of all kinds, and pedestrians, are crossing the 
Biidge; but they are mere drops oozing out from the 
mightier thoroughfare and back again, leaving no trace 
behind them. The lightest wire of the Bridge does not 
tremble as they move. You can scarcely hear the voice 
of this moving throng — it is so lost in the wilderness of 
air above and around — the wide void which absorbs, 
thirstily, the loudest sound, and drinks it to a whisper. 

You look up toward the sky, and the sky looks back 
upon you with a calm, cold, unsympathetic stare. There 
is no encouragement to "be joyous," even to a man in 
his pleasant moods. What, then, must the heavens seem 
to one who has torn himself away from that busy world 
with anguish and the desire for death in his heart? 

It is curious, too, that men, while in a melancholy or 
distracted state of mind, will seek a place like this to calm 
their distraction, or nurse their melancholy. They come 
here to wrestle with their thoughts, and to brood till their 
madness grows deeper, and the sullen river looks like a 
bosom friend, whom to embrace were happiness. 

Shall we not beheve that yon dark-browed man, leaning 
over the parapet, and looking meditatively at the water, 
is debating some terrible tragedy — is balancing in his 



172 



Russet Leaves. 



thought the probabilities of happiness and misery beyond 
" the tide." Balancing — ah I to what end ? 

It is not difficult to read character, physiognomically, 
on the Bridge. Whatever passion, whatever virtue, what- 
ever of feebleness or power there is in a man, bursts 
forth into his face as distinctly as the terrible lines that 
startled Belshazzar. He forgets himself — the shackles 
of custom and hypocrisy fall from his soul, when he comes 
into the unusual presence of this mighty Space. He 
looks about him as one embarrassed with a new sensation, 
and then yields himself to the influence of the place. Or, 
if he be a darker villain than common, he visits this spot 
with his confederates, to plan some foray or deed of blood. 

I see, in my mind's eye, three men crossing the Bridge 
together. They are whispering to each other with white, 
compressed lips. They pause in the least frequented 
place, by one of the abutments, and look about fearfully. 
Shall we steal up, as one "shod in felt," or as an invisible 
sprite, and listen to their conversation ? 

Their faces are brutal ; though young, crime has had 
its influence upon every feature ; and here, away from the 
seething sounds of the city ; here, under the solemn can- 
opy of the skies, with the universal Eye looking into their 
very faces, they are conspiring to rob and murder. They 
leave the Bridge, with that suspicious look that ever lurks 
in the faces of the guilty ; they move northward ; and ere 
another sun has risen, dark rumors of an awful crime 
thrill every heart in the city. 

What a book might be written upon this Bridge in a 
few years — what tales of wonder and horror, that would 



Russet Leaves. 173 

startle the reader if woven into verse, or skillfully depicted 
in prose ! 

The Bridge Company ought to keep a log of all the 
incidents, accidents, crimes that transpire upon the Bridge, 
and publish it yearly — not the trifling ones, but those of 
real interest and importance. That publication would 
form a volume, in time, more popular than any mere na- 
tional history that has ever been written, at least to the 
multitudes who cross tlie Bridge from day to day on busi- 
ness or for pleasure. The Annals of the Bridge might 
be a theme for our posterity to weep or laugh over, and 
for the world to admire. 

But where am I wandering ? I commenced with frost, 
and ended with poets and bridges. Yet are not tiiese, 
after all, mere frostwork.'' — more elaborate, haply, than 
that which the North-king erects upon leaf and crystal — 

But frostwork — frostwork — all ! 



174 



I\ussET Lea fes. 



XXXIV. 



lusset Cottage. 




QUIET cottage in a quiet vale, 

Shut out from tumult 'mid the waving trees, — 

Here come the birds, and butterflies, and bees, 

Through all the days of Summer, without fail. 

And music, fairy music, on the gale 
Is ever stealing in such gentle train. 
That mortal spirit melteth at the strain. 

With joy a glassy streamlet tells its tale 
Unto the listening zephyr that goes by, — 
And, climbing lazily to tlie smiling sky, 

The smoke curls from the chimney, calm and pale. 

O, honest rustic ! in tliis quiet spot 

Methinks tlie glory of Contentment dwells, 

Joy breathes a beauty through these fragrant dells, 

And Love is keeper of our humble cot ! 



Russet Leaves. 177 



XXXA^. 



B^u; Boots, 



./a^^ 



'^'*^ NE of the frostiest of frosty October mornings, 
\^^^^ my boy Ned burst into my room. The frost had 
^i^^'^ affected him somewhat. His mother had tlirust 
him into a thick coat, and put on liis shoes, to keep Jack 
Frost from biting his toes. 

" Pa," said he, " I want a pair of boots." 

I i^eered over the talkie at his shoes, and saw they were 
in a dilapidated condition. They "grinned horribly a 
ghastly smile " at the toes, suggestive of many a success- 
ful contest with old oyster-cans, stuffed hats, stray bits 
of clod, and other nuisances. 

" New boots are expensive, my boy," I responded, 
"won't a good, stout pair of shoes do?" 

" No, sir. Winter is coming ; and the snow always 
gets up my legs when I ride down hill on my sled with 
shoes." 

What father with a heart in his bosom could resist 
such an appeal ? 

"Ned," said I, w^ith a reckless disregard of expense, 
" you shall have the boots on Saturday night." 



178 J^usssr Leaves. 

The sunshine that illuminated my heir's features was 
worth a thousand pairs of boots. Sunshine ? It was sun- 
shine, moonshine, starshine, and aurora-borealis-shine, all 
combined. 

Each morning the lad awoke from slumber, and counted 
the days before Saturday ; and I took an interest in the 
approaching occasion myself: for did I not remember the 
glory of my own first new boots ? 

Yes : Ned iiad new boots on the brain — there is no 
doubt of it. He gazed with anxious curiosity on the 
feet of every man and boy, and became a profound con- 
noisseur in shoe and boot leather. He gauged the enjoy- 
ment of all men (and boys) by the age of their feet-cover- 
ings and the extent of their leather leggings. He specially 
envied a butcher lad, who wore a pair of monster boots, 
the legs of which reached to his body, and terminated in 
the splendor of red leather and a bronzed American flag. 

Saturday night — the laboring man's hour of rest — came 
at last. Saturday night — the laboring man's hour of 
reward for toil — arrived, with an atmosphere all balm, 
and an unclouded setting sun. The household idols — 
Penates and Lares — glowed smilingly at our family hearth 
that evening. And there, too, was the grinning face of 
Ned, looking down with boyish disgust on his faded old 
shoes. Poor old shoes ! Little gratefulness was there in 
the l)reast of my boy for the good service they had done 
him. He had somehow managed in his out-door exer- 
cises to get them covered with an almost miraculous 
amount of mud, so that they looked excessively unprepos- 
sessins:. He seemed to insist on having some sufficient 



Russet Leaves. 179 

reason for a div^orce from them, the desire for boots hav- 
ing taken full i^ossession of his mind. 

And so away to Tusculum went Ned and I — his ambi- 
tion for boots culminating in a nervous trembling when 
we stood in front of a flaming show-window, glittering in 
the full pomp and parade of every description and size 
of new boots. 

Boots, — from the pretty miniature pair that tickles the 
fancy of the shaver just budding into trowsers to the pon- 
derous affairs worn by the "scarred soldier, rough and 
hard of heart " — 

Boots, — from those fit for the delicate ancles of the 
miss of " sweet sixteen " to the rugged kips of the butcher 
who wades in slaughter to wealth. 

Boots were every-where, — hanging round the walls of 
the shoe-store ; standing on the counters ; ranged in long 
rows in glass cases, as if on dress parade ; put up in big 
boxes, with the soles staring us out of countenance. 

Nothing but a huge bewilderment of boots greeted us 
on all sides ; the modest shoes had retired from sight. 

" There, Ned," said I, as we entered this ocean of 
leather, smelling strangely new; "get your boots, and let 
them be lasting ones." 

Ned hesitated where to begin. He had no idea, before, 
that there were so many boots in the world. He had 
supposed that a cordwainer's shop which contained one 
or two pairs of boots — especially boy's boots — was a fine 
scene of beauty, and that perfection could no further go. 

But here — surrounded on every hand with boots enough 
apparently to supply the whole world for many years to 



i8o 



R ussE T Leaves. 



come — his imagination was appalled, and he could only 
open his mouth and eyes, and gaze. 

After rambling about awhile, and selecting boots with 
an indifferent appreciation of tlieir size, he at length be- 
came accustomed to the cow-and-calf-skin splendor, and 
began to look for his boots more systematically. 

At length he was satisfied. A pair of " stogies," im- 
mensely thick-soled and gloriously red-topped, illustrated 
with a big American flag bronzed and starred in a way 
that would amaze Bird-o'-Freedom Sawin, was selected. 
The old shoes were mercilessly pitched into the street, 
and my boy strutted fortii from the shoe-store, looking 
about upon the boots of the passers-by with an air of 
proud superiority. 

O, superabundant enjoyment of boyhood ! Not lofty 
to the man of threescore and ten seems the fulfillment of 
a boy's aspirations ; but to the boy it is delicious. 

The man of full-grown years aspires to wealth — big 
houses — town lots — country residences — city palaces — the 
poet's fame — a seat in the Senate or the Presidential 
chair; but youth pants fervently for a tin-whistle, a drum, 
a pack of fire-crackers, or a new pair of boots. 

When he obtains these, what then ? Is his satisfaction 
complete ? 

My boy's highest idea of human greatness was appar- 
ently attained. But only apparently. 

For a few days, in the mornings, his first thought was 
of his boots ; and he would rise and survey them in every 
possible attitude, as Napoleon may have surveyed his 
grand armies. Frequently he would pull then on and 



Russet Leaves. i8i 

off during the day to admire them, and to enjoy the thrill- 
ing rapture of their attrition. Once I found him up a 
back alley, sitting in the dirt. His boots were off, stand- 
ing beside him, and he was looking upon them with quiet 
complacency. 

But this could not last. As the boot novelty wore off, 
a new idea of manliness floated into his brain. 

He iniist have a boot-jack. 

" Pa," said he, one morning, after a severe struggle 
with his boots, " Pa, how am 1 to get my boots oft" easily 
without a boot-jack V 

I was in ni}' '' study " in the garret, reading '• Sartor 
Resartus," deeply interested in the sesquipedals of that 
most wordy yet deeply philosopical work, when my son 
accosted me. To be pulled down from such sublime con- 
templations as one reaches in the perusal of Carlyle, to 
the common theme of a boot-jack, is not calculated to 
smooth the temper ; and I suspect that I addressed my 
boy harshly. 

"Sir," said I, "have I not frequently told you to keep 
out of my library.^ Away with you !" 

Ned turned disconsolately and whimperingly toward the 
door, and plunged his fist into his e3'e, in the incipient 
stages of a white squall. At these signs I relented. 

" Come here, Ned." 

My boy worked his fist into his pocket, and con- 
fronted me. 

"You know, sir," said I, "that 1 can not unbend my 
mind from study to engage in the occupations of an 
artizan." (1 always address my son in simple language ; 



i82 Russet Leaves. 

but on this occasion Sartor Resartus had possession of 
me.) "Go to your granddad, and request him to manu- 
facture the instrument you desire. His mechanical abili- 
ties are sufficient for that task." 

" But grandpa is so old and weak — how can he make 
a boot-jack ?" 

"Age hath its uses, my son. And I know of no better 
use to put it to than the making of boot-jacks. Go do as 
I bid you.'' 

My son hesitated. But an imperious wave of my hand 
doorward, and a stern bencHng of my brows, warned him 
that our conference could not be prolonged, and he re- 
luctantly departed. 

Said I not rightly, that age hath its uses ? Although 
granddad Dominic trembled on the verge of the grave, 
and appeared in the sunsliine only as wt)rms and centi- 
pedes do — hiding in the warmth of his cranny, in our 
cabin, when Boreas and the Nimbi were abroad — yet he 
could do such little work as satisfied the capacity of 
childhood. Thus not in vain had I sent my son to him. 

Presently I heard his voice and Ned's in sharp and 
shrill discussion. The word "boot-jack" feverishly tell 
upon my ears, punctuating the sounding sentences of 
Sartor, and depriving that high-strung discourse of much 
of its eloquence. 

Then a sound of hammer and nails, — and the rasping 
melody of a handsaw. And I knew that the boot-jack 
was in course of construction. 

In the lapse of time Ned appeared in my room with 
that useful implement in his hand. 



Russet Leaves. 183 

" There !" said lie, holding it up, with a look of tri- 
umpjiant admiration, "there it is ; and a first-rate one it 
is, too." 

"Certainly it is, Ned. Vour grandfather is a man of 
genius, old as he is. I am but a poor manufacturer of 
boot-jacks, my boy. When you have any thing to make 
that requires mechanical tact, always go to your grand- 
father. This little garret library of mine teaches the 
head, and not the hand. Now, Ned, answer one ques- 
tion : Of what wood is your boot-jack constructed .'" 

" I do n't know, sir," said Ned, liesitatingly, " is it 
tan-bark .'" 

" Tan-bark ? No, sir ! Tan-bark is but the scaly epi- 
dermis or outer covering of the oak. 'T is the stuff the 
tanner uses to tan his leather. Were it not for tan-bark 
your boots would have hair upon them. No, my boy ; 
your boot-jack is made of pine. And that pine came from 
a greater distance than the leather for your boots, doubt- 
less. It once, may be, waved gracefully. Winter and 
Summer, hundreds of miles from here in some big forest 
away down in the State of Maine. Thus, while the skin 
from your boots was stripped from the cow in your next- 
door neighbor's pasture, the boot-jack which your grandpa 
has made traveled by land and water, over rugged roads 
and mountain-passes, down deep, wide rivers, amid rocks 
and breakers, long, toilsome miles, before it reached our 
fireside to aid Ned in pulling off iiis boots. What do you 
think of that, sir .''" 

" Why, I think that makes my boot-jack a nicer gift 
than my boots." 



1 84 



Russet Leases. 



"To be sure, Ned. Do not abuse it. It will outlast a 
thousand pairs of boots. Who knows, if you are careful 
with it, but you may use this instrument to pull off boots, 
when you are as old as pap Dominic ; and leave it as an 
heirloom for the use of some future young Ned, when 
you and granddad and your own sire are all at rest in the 
ground .'"' 

O, those f.ir glimpses into the future which the older 
folks have ! 

Ned was too young to appreciate my thoughts. Life 
to him — as to all youths of his age — was in the present. 
There was no dead Past for him to bury — no future, with 
its ghastly shadows and dim wrecks, to brood upon. 

And so he gazed vacantly on me for a moment, and 
then skirried noisily from the room, with his boot-jack. 




Russet Leaves. 185 



XXXVI. 



Bohemian Fragment* 



^.^.. 



Ct^^JW HENCE comes the Mist that we see on the tops 
^o-vi^- of the Mountains; 

■^^^^ Shaking her thin robe far down in the horrible 

chasms ; 
Settling like death o'er the orchards and cots of the 

valleys ? 
Where is she born ? and who is her wonderful Maker ? 



Wrathful and mystical, frighting the stars of the morning, 

She shaketh her wild hair in the proud face of the Sun- 
King, 

As from the soft East he steps forth with his crown and 
his scepter, 

To gladden the Earth in its voices of brooks and of 
forests : — 

She flaunteth her weird arms in the stern face of the 
Sun-King ; 

And lo ! the great monarch, in shame of the haggardly 
beldam, 



i86 



Russet Leaves. 



Shuts on the world that he loves his bright-glittering eye- 
lids, 
And bluslies with crimson to think of the dastardly insult. 

Say, whence does the Mist come ? this haughty and inso- 
lent specter, 

That dares to affront the proud lord of the Eartli and the 
planets ? 

O, speak, learned Theban, — thou student of Nature's 
arcana ! 

Answer, proud critic, resplendent in power of thermologyl 

Whence does the Mist come ? Answer, thou thesmothete 
brilliant, 

Who fixest the laws of the winds, thou who rollest — rich 
morsels ! — 

The lacteal stars beneath the great tongue of thy knowl- 
edge ! 

Whence does the Mist come ? O, speak I while the mul- 
titudes listen ! 



'T is the spirit of Blight, is this weird Mist, this phantom 

mendacious, 
Who searches our marrow, and chills us and kills us with 

fevers, — 
'T is the pestilence Hecate — begotten of hell and the 

thesis 
Of slime-ridden seas that are sluggishly flowing forever 

Out of infernal abysses ! Is this, then, thy answer. 

Thou prophet of wisdom, that readest the stars in their 

cycles ? 



Russet Leaves. 187 

Is this, then, thy answer? See! out of his dappled 

sediHum 

In the red Occident looks the robed priest of the heavens, 

And utteretli speech, — while seas pale and streams trem- 
ble and quiver, — 

I am the Mist's maker. This insolent Mist is my 
daughter ! 

See ye the waters that roll and rush on from the mount- 
ains ? 

Hear ye the dark waves that cover the earth with their 
garments ? 

I kiss them, and leave them — and lo ! in the chill of the 
twilight 

A daughter is born, — and the terrible Mist is that 
daughter ! — 

Mist of the twilight of even and eke of the morning, — 

Mist that reclines near my throne in the glory of parting, — 

Mist that looks bleak at her birth, but forever increases 

In beauty and love as she moves over mountain and 
valley. 

Beauty in cloudland, and Love in the forest and valley ; 

Beauty in flower-buds, and Love in the fruits of the 
vintao-e ! 



Russet Leases. 



XXXVII. 



Jin Jiutumn Bay. 



DELIGHTFUL day is this — a clay rich in sun- 
shine, fruitfulness, and enjoyment ! The woods, 
^^^::^ waving in gold, and purple, and gray — enchant- 
ing combination of colors ! — form a scene which the mis- 
anthrope might behold with pleasant feelings. The trees, 
bending beneath the weight of luscious fruits, bring to 
the mind happy thoughts ; and cold, indeed, must be the 
heart of him who does not breathe to the great Giver a 
song of tliankfulness while looking upon such a scene 
of plenty. 

Not only is the scene one of thankfulness and plenty — 
it is also one of hope and beauty. Autumn possesses, 
besides its calm, exliilirating atmosphere, those ever-vary- 
ing skies that are so full of grand harmonies and that 
speak so profoundly the skill of an everlasting Artist. 

To me, indeed, it is the most delightful season of the 
whole year. I can not, for my life, see why any person 
should call this part of the year "dreary" and "sad ;" for 
there are those in the world who do so. . Yesterday I 
picked up a volume of poems, written by a distinguished 



Russet Leaves. 189 

author, and glanced upon the following very doleful lines 
upon Autumn : 

" Season of silent melancholy ! 
Thine eyes are dripping amber tears ; 
And though thy garb is rich in jewels 
Of golden fruits and studded woods. 
Still art thou sad and melancholy !" 

And so on, — an unfounded accusation against the most 
delicious season tliat ever made glad tlie heart of a poet. 
I looked out upon the glorious world after reading these 
lines, and could not help exclaiming to myself, rather ill- 
humoredly, I must confess, '■'■ MelancJioly, indeed I" It 
was as lovely a day as I ever saw. Not a cloud was to 
be seen, save perhaps an occasionally fleecy speck, which 
seemed more like 

" A silent dream upon the sky — 
A breathless soul of sleepy quietude." 

Is there any thing very sad in fruit-laden trees ? in 
sunny skies ? What if the butterfly be dead ? Does not 
the bee, gay in its industry, sing a cheerful song as it 
gathers its Winter store? What if the buds are "with- 
ered and gone ?" Behold the fully developed flower, 
replete with such perfume as " maketh the heart glad." 
See the streams full of vigor and animation ! The hot 
Summer sun drinketh them up no more ; and they dance 
wildly and cannily through the woods, snatching the 
leaves from the banks in their prankishness, and hurrying 
away to the big river. Was that a bird, my dear friend ? 
It was ; and there was a thrill in its voice such as the 



1 90 



Russet Lea ves. 



Spring and Summer hear not forever. O, very sad, for- 
sooth ! Come, Mr. Out-of-Humor, and walk with me 
tlirough all this fairy country, and see the joyous objects 
that appear on every hand, and then thank God for giving 
you such a glorious season. 



Who, with a soul to enjoy a day like this, could spend 
it in-doors ? Not I, though the paintings of Claude, or 
the rich voice of eloquent Coleridge, or the seductive eyes 
of one I love above the rest, were there to lure. The 
Autumn woods silently beckon me away, and I say to 
them in my heart of hearts : 

"O breezy groves, I 'm with you once again!" 

I seize my hat, and fill my pockets with books — I know 
not, in my liaste, by what authors written — but I know 
that they are such as will say entertaining things to me 
should 1 not be entertained otherwise. Thus accoutered, 
away I go to the woodlands ! 

" There I shall hear the mellow pipe of Pan, 
Waking to joy the purpled Autumn wood : 
And wood-nymphs, thronging to the leafy temple. 
Shall pour into my heart their orisons." 

To me, fond as I am of wild scenery, there is some- 
thing peculiarly enchanting in a ramble through a big 
forest. An inspiriting love springs up in my heart when 
1 view those free creatures that abide tliere. When I 
hear the birds sing, I am carried one step nearer that 
glowing land where dwell the pure in heart. Each breath 



/^crssET Leaves. 



191 



of air in this silent place is laden with rosy freshness. 
No feverish turmoil jars the serenity of the spirit. All is 
holy and hallowing. 

Thus did I meditate when I entered one of those noble 
forests which are so prevalent in the West. A red-bird, 
perched upon a young sapling, greeted nie with a welcome 
song as 1 entered the wood. I raised my eyes to the 
delighted bird, blessed him for his unselfish hospitality, 
and passed on, to hear other red-birds, where the roses 
were thicker, and the choking dust came not. 

As I passed along, in an open space, I encountered a 
large building which was in a dilapidated condition. It 
was surrounded by a fruitless orchard, under the trees of 
which rank weeds were growing. The crows, and other 
birds of similar character, had built their nests in the 
vicinity. A solitary ground-squirrel started from the door- 
way at my approach, and hurried out of sight. I entered 
the house. The rafters were rotting away rapidly, and 
here and there the wall had tumbled down. The indus- 
trious spider had built his gossamer prison-house in every 
nook and corner. The conservative bat and the owl held 
possession of the rickety chimneys. On the hearth-stone 
sat a solitar}' house-toad, who seemed to stare at me, as I 
entered, with his immovable eyes, and ask, "Well, sir, 
your will ?" like a host disturbed in solemn reveries. The 
centipede crawled over the moth-eaten floor, deeming him- 
self now " lord of the manor-house." Strange, unearthly 
silence dwelt throughout the place, disturbed only by the 
breeze, whicli sighed through the broken doorway and 
among the crannies with sad echoes of the happy voices 



192 



Russet Leaves. 



that once made merry the old roof-tree. I sat down upon 
a decaying window-sill, and meditated. 

How long has it been since this silent homestead was 
inhabited } Fifteen years ! How long that seems ! Fif- 
teen years ago I sat before that very hearth-stone, one 
Winter night, and listened to the cheering voice of little 
May. Where is she now ? Out in the woods, dark and 
beautiful, where the sun comes only in flecked bars, is a 
litde tomb, now green and fragrant. Little May's body 
is there. Earth never took unto her bosom a lovelier 
sight tiian the clay-cold form of the gentle child. 




A' ussE T Leaves. i 93 



XXXVIII. 



Beat, dear l?iatj! 




" Her memory still within my mind 
Retains its sweetest power : 
It is the perfume left behind, 
That whispers of the flower." 



YET recollect her rosy cheeks and fair hair ! 
I yet recollect her graceful form and beaming 
eye ! They often come before my memory in 
day-dreams — sweet visions of the jDast, the far-away, dead 
past ! And when, sometimes in the still nights, I hear 
her ringing laugh — and I often hear it then, as I used to 
hear it many a long year ago, in the blue days of Sum- 
mer — my heart beats youthfully, and the tear of joy gathers 
in my eye, and the smile beams in my face, and I am a 
child again. 

I well remember that Autumn day when we — little May 
and I — started out into the woods, to gather butternuts 
and beachnuts, and the shining Autumn flowers. Never 
shall I forget that Autumn day. I never saw such a lovely 
day before. I have never seen a day like it since. I 

J3 



194 



Russet Leaves. 



shall never behold its likeness again. It seemed to me as 
if Nature had caught a divine ray from the memorable 
Eden of the Past, and now blushed with more than her 
natural beauty. The trees were greener than I ever knew 
them to be ; the sky was of a diviner blue ; the birds 
wore a brighter plumage, and sung more delighting songs ; 
and the streams were full of love, and harmonious with 
happiness. Our young hearts were infused with the joy 
and serenity of the outward world, and the birds were 
sometimes startled by our blissful shouts. 

On we wandered through the green woods ; sometimes 
plucking flowers, sometimes chasing a tiny bird that 
would perch upon the ground — fruitless chase ! — some- 
times gathering nuts beneath the trees, and sometimes 
sitting beside a sparkling rivulet, chatting, in innocent 
phrase, of the bliss of this woodland life. 

But at lengtli the evening drew on ; and, putting our 
little gatherings of nuts and flowers in a bundle, we began 
to think of returning home. After wandering some time 
among the labyrinths of the forest, we found — woe to our 
young hearts ! — that we were lost ! Lost ! Reader, were 
you ever lost in the woods just as darkness began to 
come on? If so, you can judge of our sorrow. We sat 
down despairingly, and attempted to ease our aching, 
bursting hearts with weeping. We called upon our par- 
ents. The woods only mocked us with their unfeeling 
replies. Duskier and duskier grew the woods, and stiller 
and stiller grew the air, till at length a strange darkness 
came on, and all was silent. Ever since noon, occasional 
dusky specks might have been seen scarring the blue rim 



Russet Leaves. 197 

of the horizon. Now a swarm of dark, heavy clouds 
rolled up the sky, and the thunder moaned above our 
heads ominously. 

The thick rain-drops commenced pouring through the 
leaves of the trees, and drenched us, as, rising from the 
ground, we hurried distractedly through the forest. Finally 
little May became exhausted with weeping and running, 
and fell, fainting, upon the ground. 1 took her in my 
arms, and strove to bear her along. In vain. Her damj? 
clothing and yielding form were too much for my feeble 
efforts ; and, placing her upon the ground, I kneeled be- 
side her, and cried as boy never cried before. I thought 
my dear playmate dead — she whom I loved so well — and 
my soul froze with despair and horror. O, how glad I 
was when the rain ceased its pattering on the trees — when 
the morning sun lit up the world with life ! But my joy 
was not lasting ; for my little companion lay still upon the 
earth — O, how still ! 

At last she opened her eyes. Did I see aright ? Her 
lips moved. I ran to a stream that gurgled near us, and 
filled my already bedrenched hat with water, carried it to 
my playmate, poured the cooling draught upon her lips, 
and rubbed it upon her burning, fevered brow. She 
thanked me with a smile. A dim smile it was — the ghost 
of her old smile ; yet it bore rapture to my sinking heart ; 
for I felt that the fresh water soothed her, and made her 
feel happier. After awhile she spoke : 

" Where am I ?" 

" Do n't you remember. May ? We are in the woods 
where we gathered the flowers ?" 



198 



JRussET Leaves. 



And then she seemed to sink into a dreary sleep again, 
murmuring faintly the names of those she held most 
dear on earth — dreaming, j)erhaps, of her little pets and 
the dear ones at home. 

How dismal seemed that long, weary day ! and how 
sad the songs of May's favorite wood-birds ! And May 
moaned through all the day, and babbled feverish things ; 
and started out of restless slumbers, with a wandering 
eye and hectic cheek, and smiled upon me wearily ; and 
then sunk back to her slumbers again. And I cried all 
day, and rushed through the woods screaming for assist- 
ance to carry little May from that lonely place ; and always 
returned to find the sweet girl whispering of flowers and 
home. But no relief came. 

With what bitterness of spirit I beheld the sun set ! 
The stars looked so sorrowful as they peeped through the 
trees that night, dimly lighting the dark wood. Far, far 
in the night — O, joy, joy ! — I heard a voice call my name. 
I tried to answer, but could not, my heart l)eat so high. 
Presently I saw lights, and heard the murmur of voices, 
and a hurrying among the leaves. But I remember noth- 
ing else that happened then ; for I sunk into a swoon. 

When I awoke, I was at home, in bed. My mother 
was there, and my father, and my brother, and my sister — 
all were there ; and the doctor, too, with his reflective 
face, feeling my pulse, and bathing my head and shaking 
his. But May was not there. Her blue eyes beamed not 
upon me. 

"Where is May?" I asked. 

Little May was sick — worse than myself 



J^ussK T Lea ves. 



199 



In a clay or two I was well enough to visit my little 
playmate. I found her lying, in a strong fever, upon her 
bed. Her eye was exceedingly bright; yet it seemed like 
a strange brightness to me. Her cheek was very red ; 
but it was the hectic red of a burning, wasting sickness ; 
and slie looked so unlike my own light-hearted May of 
other days, that the tears started in my eyes as I looked 
upon her face. May saw them, and she threw such a 
sorrowful glance upon me, that I was compelled to go 
out of doors to hide my anguish. Presently I returned, 
more calm. 

" How do you feel, May V I asked. 

" I feel very happy now," she said, " though all last 
night it was very warm. But as soon as the birds began 
to sing, and I could look out of the window and see the 
flowers, I felt much better. I always feel better when I 
see and smell the flowers." 

"Do you remember those we gathered in the woods. 
May ? That was a sad day, wiien we got lost and the 
rain spoiled our flowers. But you will soon get well, and 
we will gather them nearer home." 

"I wish you would get me some now," she said. "I 
will put them in a vase by my bedside, and look at them 
all day." 

I did as she requested ; and gathered the sweetest 
roses I could find, and placed them upon a stand beside 
her, that she might enjoy their fragrance. 

But ah ! they had not in them the odor that brings the 
fading spirit back to life ! 

Day by day her cheek grew thinner and more flushed 



200 Russet Leaves. 

with the crimson lijjht of death ; and her eyes became 
more strangely bright ; and she tossed restlessly in her 
bed ; but she complained not — moaned not ; and ever 
talked of a hopeful future — a life among roses and birds — 
till the full hearts of her parents overflowed. 

How beautiful was that Autumn evening, when she 
requested her weeping mother to draw the chair, in which 
she was cushioned, near the window, that she might look 
out upon her favorite flowers ! 

" Where are they, mother ? I can not see them." 

Little May's eyes were getting dim. 

"There they are, my child, in the garden-bed your 
mother made for you." 

" I can 't see them, mother. I see nothing but the 
beautiful sun away off yonder, shining so bright ; and yet 
even that gets darker and darker. The clouds are passing 
over it now. How cold it is getting ! Wrap me closer, 
mother — closer !" 

Then little May drooped back upon her pillow, and 
breathed no word, but still seemed to be looking out after 
her favorite flowers. 

I kneeled down beside my little playmate, and looked 
into the face that had so often glanced upon me with 
kindness. I saw a strange smile come quietly upon her 
pale lips. 

" May, do you feel happy now ?" 

No answer came. She was happy — among the angels. 



J\[/ssET Lea FES. 



Fifteen fears <§.go. 




IFTEEN years ago, or more, in Summer-time, 
before the doorway there, where you see those 
ugly, yellow weeds, was a little green plat, over 
which Henry and I used to engage in childish sports. 
Where is Henry now ? Go search, on the route to Cali- 
fornia, for the desolate, tearless graves of the poor adven- 
turers, who have been scattered like chaff by the breezes 
of Death. You will find Henry's among the number. 
Pleasant was his eye when I shook the parting hand with 
him— pleasant with hopefulness. Warm was his heart, 
and filled with sunny thoughts of future prosperity. As 
he waved his hand toward me from the departing boat, 
a tear stood in his eye and mine. Alas ! even then a 
gloomy prescience of his death fell like a storm-cloud 
upon my spirit. But it was too late to press him to yield 
up his schemes The boat was on its way — and the play- 
mate of my youth was gone forever. One month fled, and 
I heard of his death. The announcement came to me like 
a shock ; for we may not bear the loss of our old asso- 
ciates unmoved. As I look upon the spot in front of the 



202 Russet Leaves. 

doorway there, I see his laughing face peeping up through 
the long grass, like a pleasant memory, and the tears 
stand on my cheek. I feel, I know that I shall see that 
face again, not in dreams only, but in the beautiful reality, 
when Time and I have parted. 

Fifteen years ago, or more. Uncle John sat by the 
Winter fire, in yonder corner — how snug and comfortable 
it was then ! — and conned some old air or legend in liis 
strange way, or smoked his pipe meditatively. A curious 
fellow was Uncle John, yet a good man withal. The lads 
and lasses revered his white, thin locks and bald forehead. 
They would not have insulted him for the world. And 
Uncle John was full of wisdom, with all his queer ways, 
and used to tell us children sucli delightful stories in the 
long Winter ev'enings — stories full of nice instruction, 
that were worth a whole house-full of fairy tales, and such 
nonsense. 

Alas ! the voice of Uncle John faded many years ago, 
even before the fragrant vine wiiich tretlised this south 
window. He, too, is silent in the grave. And Death 
seemed to respect the venerable man ; for he led Uncle 
John into the "shadow and the gloom" so gently, that 1 
hardly think the good man himself knew that he was 
going. He was sitting in his arm-chair by the window, 
one Summer night, looking out upon the meadows, when 
the children, as usual, gathered around him, and asked 
the old man for a story : " Do, Uncle John, give us one 
of your stories." But Uncle John still looked calmly and 
pleasantly through that same trellised window, without 
replying. We wondered what could be the matter ; for 



Russet Leaves. 203 

Uncle John never hesitated a moment in replying when 
spoken to. A deep grief filled our hearts when we found 
out that the dear man was dead. And yet death came to 
him with so light a touch, that our grief was mitigated. 
Will you believe it ? he had just filled his favorite pipe, 
and was about to light it when he was called away, — so 
sudden was his death ! 

Many of those whose voices once cheered this falling 
building are still alive. But they are married, and gone 
into far countries, to seek their fortune. I alone remain 
a witness of its wretchedness and solitude — I alone of all 
that once smiled beneath its hospitable roof. And thus 
beholding its desolation, and remembering the changes of 
these sad fifteen years, I can but imitate the quiet breeze 
which conies through its forsaken doorway, and sigh. 
But why should I sigh .'* Yet a few years will pass, and 
my clay tenement, with all its soul and vigor gone, will 
decay like the building in which I sit. In a few years, at 
most, no rafter, nor beam, nor stone will stand in this 
solemn place to tell the woodland wanderer that such a 
building ever existed ; and I, with all the mortal things 
that surround me, will have forever passed from the 
thoughts of man. 




204 Russet Leaves. 



Wood-Fancies, 



''ng^UT, casting aside these melancholy thoughts, I 
^^ stepped through an open window, and entered 
'?^■^ the forest ; for, as before said, there is to me 
much genuine pleasure in a ramble through the woods. 

The melancholy appearance of nature, in this haunt 
of the hamadryads, well accords with the feelings of my 
soul. There is more true happiness aflforded to me in 
tending the numerous little flowerets in the woodlands 
and watching their growth from day, or in reclining upon 
some mossy bank, and listening to the music of birds, 
than in all the conviviality of the fashionable world. How 
peaceful is my mind in these grand solitudes ! Here I 
converse, as face to face, with the very God of Nature ; 
and sometimes I fancy that I see his gentle yet more than 
sublime countenance smiling upon me through the waving 
verdure of the trees. 

I have plenty of company here. There is an assem- 
blage of happy spirits stirring around me in each bud and 
flower. The green branches of the lofty trees which 
overshadow me breathe the most kindly influence. The 



<'^M. ^^^^5^ 




Russet Leaves. 207 

birds — " the poor man's minstrels " — do not fail to awaken 
sacred feelings in my bosom, as they chant their hymns 
in the leaves above me. It appears to me as if they were 
sent as messengers of love, to cheer the desponding spirit 
of him who wanders through tlie dark woodland. 

In these "gray old woods," with the birds and flowers, 
and the majestic old oaks so cool in shadow, I pass many 
days of the Spring, Summer, and Autumn. Here I envy 
no man his state, but rather meditate in pity on the fate 
of the poor citizen, who toils away the golden hours of 
life amid the heat and dust of the city. The king upon 
his throne might envy me these feelings. 

The king "envy" me.'' Am I not myself 7i king here? 
This wood my glorious realm, and all the bards of all 
time my subjects ? Right loyally they come, at my com- 
mand, and arouse my listening and indulgent ear with the 
purest and holiest thoughts — the sublimest stories. 

Geoftrey Chaucer, with his quaint imaginings ; and 
Wharton, with his airy muse ; and Cowper, with his pleas- 
ing " Task ;" and Wordsworth, with his thoughtful elo- 
quence ; and Byron, the genius of misanthropy and of 
blighted love ; and Spenser, with his delightful pastoral 
songs ; and Shakspeare, the princely one, standing erect 
above all these, his great brow shining with inspiration : 
such are my subjects, "ye denizens of the pent city's 
mart." 

Ye common, material kings, what think ye of them ? 
Is all your gold and tinsel aught in the eye of such a 
king as myself — the hermit-king ? 

And I build castles, too, after my subjects have amused 



208 



Russet Leaves. 



rae sufficiently — "castles i' the air," that outshine all your 
frippery. 

Build I them in the spangled sunset clouds ; build I 
them in the waving foliage of the Autumn trees ; build I 
them in the streams, and they carry me on, on, till I am 
lost in the wide ocean of delight. 

I build them every-where, ye tinseled monarchs, wher- 
ever there is beauty and loveliness. And they are as 
lasting as yours, and, no doubt, afford me more satisfac- 
tion while they last. 

To be sure, I feel disappointed when they are finally 
swept away. 

But what is my disappointment, O tinseled ones, com- 
pared with yours, when the vast shadow of Death encir- 
cles your palaces and your subjects ? — when you behold 
all about to be conveyed forever from your eyes .'' 

Ha ! ha ! ' 

I would not taunt you ; but, canopied by these ancient 
trees, in this dim and desolate spot, with my air-castles, 
and my book-subjects who never rebel, I do not envy you 
with all your tinsel. 

Build your high designs, ye great kings ; and smile 
with contempt upon such men as the humble hermit, if 
you will. We shall shake hands in the grave/ 



Russet Leaves. 



209 



XLI. 



Bij $ilent iSrrair^s, 




Y silent graves I walk unseen, 
Beneatli tlie midnight moon serene, 
T^ -<- And think of those who sleep below, 
Unknowing of the moonlight glow. 
No sheeted ghost assails me here, 
Upstarting from its lonely bier : 
Around, beneath, and overhead. 
All, all is silent as the dead. 



Yon rippling stream, whose dimpled waves 
Leap sparkling by the shadowy graves, 
Singing a song as they leap along — 
A joyant song as they leap along — 
Makes the only sound that stirs the breeze. 
Is the only thing which the vision sees. 
Moving about 'neath the church-yard trees. 
14 



Russet Leaves. 

The moonbeam slips with the slipping stream ; 

And the calm stars seem as if a dream 

Of the holy dead were in their eyes, 

As they slumber there in the quiet skies, — 

A dream of the sinless dead, whose hands 
Are folded in melancholy grace — 
Folded so meekly in death's embrace — 
While their spirits white, in the realms of light, 



And here — ah I here — on her little bier, 

Sleeps silently, from year to year. 

The loved one — O, to my heart how near ! 

I well remember that dim day 

When the angels came, in their bright array. 

And bore her from the earth away — 

From the dark and the sinful world away. 

A hymn was sung, a prayer was said. 

And then, in the city of the dead. 

With the odorous flowers around her head, 

We laid her down in her clay-cold bed. 



We wept — but O, what useless tears ! 
From out the beams of yon dreaming spheres, 
That seem to sleep in the sky of June 
Like the rosy babes of the parent Moon, 
Comes a whispered sign to my listening soul — 
A sign of love to my sorrowing soul — 
Which tells that she, the loved and sweet, 
With the stars beneath her shining feet, 



Russet Leaves. 

Surrounded by all holy things, 

And waving an angel's dazzling wings, 

Beyond the reach of sorrow and sin, 

In a land where shame can not enter in, — 

That she, the loved, the early lost. 

Whom we delighted to call our own, 
Is singing in beauty with the host 

That bow around the Father's throne. 




2i; 



Russet Leaves. 



XLII. 



$iluan Elegy. 




ITHIN this leafy woodland dim, 

When Nature robes in bloom the year, 
Love kneels to kiss the turf of him 
Whose gentle harp is buried here. 



For liini no more the stars so red 
Shall grace the dreamy lawns of heaven, — 

For him no more the roses shed 

Tiieir fragrance on tiie breath of even. 

But musing streams shall steal along. 

In sorrow, o'er the velvet sward. 
And lisp a sad and tender song 

Above the pillow of the bard. 



Oft, when the sober twilight fades, 
And Luna rolls her silver wave, 

Some airy minstrel of the shades 
Shall sing an anthem o'er his grave. 



Russet Leaves. 



213 



Here, when the dewy night retires, 
The silvan sisterhood repair. 

And softly touch their dulcet lyres. 
While calm enchantment fills the air. 

Each starry eve shall him recall, 
Each fading flower record his doom, 

And Memory's feeling tear shall fall 
Upon the woodland poet's tomb ! 




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